human
Then again whole events in history come down to me with the effect of an orchestra, playing in the distance; single lives sometimes like a great solo. As for the people I know or have known, some have to me the sound of brass, some the sound of wood, some the sound of strings. Only--so few, so very, very few yield the perfect music of their kind. The brass is a little too loud; the wood a little too muffled; the strings--some of the strings are invariably broken. I know a big man who is nothing but a big drum; and I know another whose whole existence has been a jig on a fiddle; and I know a shrill little fellow who is a fife; and I know a brassy girl who is a pair of cymbals; and once--once, repeated the parson whimsically,
gpt
I knew an old maid who was a real living spinet. I even know another old maid now who is nothing but an old music book--long ago sung through, learned by heart, and laid aside: in a faded, wrinkled binding--yellowed paper stained by tears--and haunted by an odour of rose-petals, crushed between the leaves of memory: a genuine very thin and stiff collection of the rarest original songs--not songs without words, but songs without sounds--the ballads of an undiscovered heart, the hymns of an unanswered spirit.
human
All Ireland--it is a harp! We know what Scotland is. John, he exclaimed, suddenly turning toward the dark figure lying just inside the shadow,
gpt
I know it, said John sorrowfully.
human
My only hope is that the harp will outlast the bee.
gpt
At least that was a chord finely struck,
human
Martin Luther--he was a cathedral organ. And so it goes. And so the whole past sounds to me: it is the music of the world: it is the vast choir of the ever-living dead. He gazed dreamily up at the heavens:
gpt
Plato! he is the music of the stars.
human
The most that we can do is to begin a strain that will swell the general volume and last on after we have perished. As for me, when I am gone, I should like the memory of my life to give out the sound of a flute.
gpt
Would you like a little music?