A FAMOUS AMERICAN ON MUSIC.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 2182, 11 July 1890, Page 1

A FAMOUS AMERICAN ON MUSIC.

Oliver 'Wendell Holmes lias tho following to s.-vy in reference to music :—" I don't like your chopped music any way. That woman — she had more sense in her little linger than forty medical societies — Florence Nightingale says that the music you pour out is good for sick folk, and the music you pound out isn't. Not that exactly, hut something like it. 1 have hecn to hear some music pounding. It was a young woman with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings Ih. -it did it. She gave the music stool a twirl or two, and fluffed down on it like a whirl of soapsuds in a hand basin. Then she pushed off her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's helt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber cm' I suppose, and spread out her lingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the keyboard, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands made a jump at the keys, as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black and white .sheep, and the piano gave «a great howl, as if its tail had been tnd on. Dead stop — so still you could hear your hair growing; then another jump and another howl, as if the piano had two tails, and you had trod on boih of 'cm ot once, and then a grand clatter and scramble, and string of jumps, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, aud 1 like to hear a fiddle sing, but these lioises they hammer out of their wood anel ivory anyils — don't talk to me, I know the difference between a bull frog and a wood thrush !"'