one who has several thousand words at his command. But the mysteries of counter-point and thorough bass form part of the elementary education of all cultivated Colymbians, and it is only the very stupidest and the ill-educated among these whose knowledge of music does not go beyond the first principles of the art. And even they can understand sufficiently the drift of a brilliant orator to listen to him with pleasure; just as our unlettered rustics are pleased to hear the eloquence of our best speakers, though they cannot be credited with understanding all they hear.
A very brilliant orator, with whom I conversed, would hardly believe that we, in old European countries, still consider pieces of which melodies form the staple as the highest development of music.
"Melodies," he exclaimed, "are mere twaddle. We have long since done with them here. You miss the chief delight of music, if, for instance, in the case of a ballad, whose every verse and every line conveys some different idea, you sing all of them to one unvarying tune; and as a rule you can only hear the tune, and not the words, when it is sung. Pshaw!" he said, "leave tunes to children and fools and cultivate that higher style of art where every note has its meaning, every cadence and every chord expresses an idea, an emotion or a scientific fact; where, in short, the notes are the words, a language of sweet sounds."
I could not altogether share the enthusiasm of the orator, and often, after a seance, when I had listened to the finest outpouring of this highly-finished and scientific music, I longed for some of the sweet melodies of my native land, and could even enjoy the meaningless dance-tunes of the evening assemblies. Just as one does not like to go about always on stilts, so one
