There is a dreadful loneliness in this great house at night. I had better say my prayers, and try to sleep. If it doesn’t make me feel happier, it will prevent me spoiling my Journal by dropping tears on it.
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What an evening of evenings this has been! Last night it was crying that kept me awake. To-night I can’t sleep for joy.
Philip called on us again to-day. He brought with him tickets for the performance of an Oratorio. Sacred music is not forbidden music among our people. Mrs. Staveley and Miss Staveley went to the concert with us. Philip and I sat next to each other.
My sister is a musician—I am nothing. That sounds bitter; but I don’t mean it so. All I mean is, that I like simple little songs, which I can sing to myself by remembering the tune. There, my musical enjoyment ends. When voices and instruments burst out together by hundreds, I feel bewildered. I also get attacked by fidgets. This last misfortune is sure to overtake me when choruses are being performed. The unfortunate people employed are made to keep singing the same words, over and over and over again, till I find it a perfect misery to listen to them. The choruses were unendurable in the performance to-night. This is one of them: “Here we are all alone in the wilderness—alone in the wilderness—in the wilderness alone, alone, alone—here we are in the wilderness—alone in the wilderness—all all alone in the wilderness,” and soon, till I felt inclined to call for the learned person who writes Oratorios, and beg him to give the poor music a more generous allowance of words.
Whenever I looked at Philip, I found him looking at me. Perhaps he saw from the first that the music was wearying music to my ignorant ears. With his usual delicacy he said nothing for some time. But when he caught me yawning (though I did my best to hide it, for it looked like being ungrateful for the tickets), then he could restrain himself no longer. He whispered in my ear:
“You are getting tired of this. And so am I.”
“I am trying to like it,” I whispered back.
“Don’t try,” he answered. “Let’s talk.”
He meant, of course, talk in whispers. We were a good deal annoyed—especially when the characters were all alone in the wilderness—by bursts of singing and playing which interrupted us at the most interesting moments. Philip persevered with a manly firmness. What could I do but follow his example—at a distance?