Various

“ It would be impossible to transpose them without losing their identity, and destroying the sense of the music. Mozart’s genius was tender yet sublime: Beethoven’s was melancholy, mysterious, yet gigantic. Each painted himself; each drew from his own bosom all the inspiration his works exhibited. They required no outward influence; they needed no adventitious circumstances to rouse their imagination, or to cause their thoughts to flow, for in their own souls was an ever gushing spring of divine melody, that could not be controlled. ”

“ And what felt Edith at this meeting? She had lived on one sweet hope, and had borne absence, and sorrow, and the wasting of weary expectancy with the patience of a loving and trusting heart. It is true that, as years sped on, she lost much of the sanguine temper which once seemed to abbreviate time and diminish space. It is true that as time stole the bloom from her cheek and the brightness from her eye, many a misgiving troubled her gentle bosom, and the shadow of a settled grief seemed gradually extending its gloom over her feelings. ”

“ Edith was deeply agitated, and her cheek grew pale, as she murmured: “You are right in obeying your father, Edward; happiness never yet waited on one who was deficient in filial duty.”
“And is this all you can say, Edith,” exclaimed Edward passionately. “Is this cold approval all I can hope to receive from the object of my first and only love? Have not my every look and tone told you how deeply I loved you, and can you let me depart without one word of tenderness or regret? ”

“ It is not easy to kindle a new flame from the ashes of an extinguished passion. There was a secret consciousness, a sense of dissatisfaction with himself, that made Ellis rather shrink from Edith’s society, and threw an air of constraint over his manner towards the whole family. He was not happy in the presence of her who appeared before him as a spectre of the past, bearing reproaches in its melancholy countenance, and after a few embarrassed attempts at carelessness in his intercourse with her, he ceased entirely to visit the family. ”

“ But her eyes were bent upon the ground, while the big tears fell like rain from beneath the drooping lids and in her flushed cheek he saw only displeasure.
“I was right, Edith,” said he, sadly, “you do not love me; forgive and forget my folly, but let us not part in coldness.” He took her hand again, as he spoke: “I perhaps deserve punishment for my selfishness in thus asking the heart when I could not claim the hand; when I am gone, some happier lover will perhaps ask both and then⁠—”
“He will be denied,” interrupted Edith, hastily, turning her agitated face towards her suitor. ”

“ With a world of sorrow and care sinking from her view, and an eternal life of happiness opening upon her dying eyes, she closed her useful and blameless life.
On the very day fixed upon for his marriage with a young and fashionable heiress, Edward Ellis received a summons to attend, as pall bearer, the funeral of Edith Pemberton. Of course he could not decline, and as he beheld the earth flung upon the coffin which concealed the faded form of her whom he had once loved, the heart of the selfish and worldly man was touched with pity and remorse. ”

“ She was thus enabled to see Edward’s letters to his parents, and though they were very business-like commonplace affairs, not at all resembling a lady’s beau-ideal of a lover’s epistle, still Edith was satisfied. It was strange that so strong, so abiding, so pervading a passion should have taken possession of a creature so gentle, so almost cold in her demeanor. But the calmest exterior often conceals the strongest emotions, and, if the flow of Edith’s feelings was quiet it was only because they worked for themselves a deeper and less fathomable channel. ”

“ He looks abroad upon the face of nature, and there are endless stores of bright and beautiful things, to feed his fancy, to stimulate his imagination and refresh his thoughts.
How few of these fruitful themes, are available to the musician!
The painter in all his beautiful creations, pourtrays his subjects by the means of the actual. From the living loveliness which he daily sees, he hoards up rich stores of beauty, for some happy thought. But to aid him in his labors, he has the actual form and color, light and shade. The forms of beauty that glow and breathe upon the canvass ”

“ His early passion, like his aspirations after fame, had become but as a dream of the past, a shadow of some unattainable felicity. The hope which once made his love a source of anticipated happiness, had long since faded from his sight, and as time passed on, a tender and melancholy interest, such as one feels when regarding the youthful dead, was the only emotion which the recollection of Edith could inspire. He had outlived the affection which he had designed to be the measure of their existence. ”

“ We learn music when we are children, because papa and mamma will have it so; now you go to work jingling and fiddling, but imperceptibly the mind becomes susceptible to music. Perhaps the half-forgotten theme of the little song, which you formerly sang, was the first original thought, and from this embryo, nourished laboriously by foreign powers, grows a giant, who consumes all within his reach, and changes all into his own flesh and blood! Ah, how is it possible to point out the innumerable influences which lead a man to compose. ”

“ Clifton’s faults will not exonerate you from the performance of your duty. For the love I bear you, Lucy, I will speak the truth: all the misery of your wedded life proceeds from the fatal indulgence of a procrastinating spirit. One uncorrected fault has been the means of alienating your husband’s affections, and bringing discord and misrule into the very heart of your domestic Eden. This must not be. You have strong sense and feeling, and must conquer the defect of character that weighs so heavily on your peace. ”

“ There is scarcely any defect of character, that a husband, by taking the right method may not cure; always providing his wife is not unprincipled. But he must be very patient; bear for a season; add to judicious counsel much tenderness and affection; making it clear to her mind that love for herself and solicitude for their mutual happiness are the objects in view. Hard in heart, and with little of woman’s devotion unto him to whom her faith is plighted, must the wife be who could long resist. Not such an one was Lucy Clifton ”

“ Dark and mysterious strains of harmony would be succeeded by a burst of wild and melancholy fancy. Anon a tender, but broad and flowing melody, would melt the soul by its passionate pathos, but only of sufficient duration to render the cadence of heart-rending despair, which succeeds it, the more striking. Rapid and abrupt modulations, strange and startling combinations, bore evidence of his wild imagination, and the uncontrollable impulse of his feelings. The opera of Fidelio, the only dramatic work that he ever wrote, ranks only second to Don Giovanni. ”

“ Into that music’s liquid strain⁠—
Oh! heavenly as its sweetest note⁠—
Nor ever walk the earth again.
What change is this? Hate, fiercest Hate,
Where once these angel-yearnings burned
Like torches set by Heaven’s bright gate,
Hath all to deadly poison turned.
The Best can only feel the fire,
But once, which flashes from the clime
Where love sits beaming o’er the lyre
That strikes the mystic march of Time. ”

“ The high, squeaking tones of the violins and flutes, and the growling ground bass of the bassoon are all that I can hear; they follow each other up and down in octaves, which tear the ear, until, at last, like one who is seized with a burning pain, I cry out involuntarily,
“What mad music! Those detestable octaves!”—Near me some one mutters.
“Cursed Fate! Here is another octave-hunter!” I look up and perceive now for the first time that imperceptibly to me a man has taken a place at the same table, who is looking intently at me, and from whom I cannot take my eyes away again. ”

“ William Clifton was a young man of fine abilities, and most excellent character; of quick temper, and impatient, he was ever generous, and ready to acknowledge his fault. When he married Lucy, he thought her as near perfection as it was possible for a woman to be; proportionate was his disappointment, at finding the evil habit of procrastination, almost inherent in her nature from long indulgence, threatening to overturn the whole fabric of domestic happiness his fancy had delighted to rear. ”

“ To “turn” a melody is the easiest thing in life, and all the adjuncts, harmony and instrumentation, are merely mechanical parts of the art, which every one might learn. This is a popular and very gross error. Music is either a simple succession of relative intervals, which form a melody, or an aggregate of consonant or dissonant sounds, which produces a harmony. These two combined, form a vehicle for the expression of the passions of the human heart, more forcible and more truthful, than the noblest works of either the painter or the poet. ”

“ You make me ashamed of human nature. You really cannot believe what you say!”
This was spoken with a warmth that convinced me the words were from the heart. I felt that however flippant the Lady Katharine might be to the vain and empty suitors that usually thronged around her, she had a heart—a warm, true, woman’s heart—a heart that beat with noble emotions and was susceptible to all the finer feelings of love. I would have replied, but at this instant the Duke of Chovers approached and requested the honor of waltzing with her. ”

“ Edith Pemberton was the eldest of a large family. Her father, immersed in business like most of our American merchants, spent the working days of every week at his counting room, only returning at evening, jaded and fatigued, to read the newspaper, and to doze upon the sofa till bed time. Governed by the erroneous ideas, which led men, in our country, to attempt the accumulation of a rapid fortune, in the vain hope of enjoying perfect leisure in their later years, Mr. Pemberton had become little more than a money-making machine. ”

“ Her girlhood had been consumed amid womanly cares, and now her years of blooming womanhood were to be wasted in supplying the deficiencies of those who had incurred responsibilities which exceeded their powers. Yet Edith never thought of murmuring. She had been so long accustomed to live for others that self-sacrifice had now become habitual, and she never dreamed too much might be asked of or granted by sisterly affection.
It is a common remark that the years seem to grow shorter as we advance in life, and they who could once exclaim “a whole year!” ”