Various

“ It was their last meeting before the concert—before the wedding, in fact. They had been boy and girl friends, and such ties always get a wrench when marriage comes to one or other and leaves one stranded. It is a wrench where there has been nothing but friendship; where love is, it is a very rending of the heart-strings. Giovanni at length rose to go.
"Good-bye, Hester; it's the last time I may call you so."
"Good-bye, Giovanni."
"GOOD-BYE, HESTER."
They would meet again in the crowded saloons of Lord Alison's mansion, but this was to be their true farewell. ”

“ It was a wonderful melody, so simple, yet so full and thrilling in its harmonies. The player's face grew softer as he touched the keys, and he looked almost youthful again in spite of his worn appearance. It was not age, however, that had grizzled Arthur Dalziel's hair. He was but two-and-thirty, though he looked like forty-five. Again and again he played the melody, and an unwonted moisture gathered in his cold grey eyes. The music seemed to affect him strangely. Pausing for a little, while his fingers rested caressingly on the keys, he sighed: "Poor Jack! Poor Jack! ”

“ Do you mean to tell me," screamed James, rising on the tips of his toes with indignation, "to tell me that a Bully is the sort of person to obtain the highest praises and rewards of his fellow-creatures?"
"I do," said William. "The sort, and the only sort. I'll grant that your beneficent person who does a lot of good to your humans may come in for a good large amount of praises, and also even get a small amount of solid rewards: but the fellow they really love is your Bully."
"How can they love him? Impossible!" said James. ”

“ Lady Hester Trenoweth did not love Arthur Dalziel, but she loved Arthur Dalziel's ward, a young violinist who had begun to create quite a furore in the fashionable world. In fact, Giovanni had become the rage, and though some said it was preposterous that a young man in his position should adopt music as a profession, they were nasty, old-fashioned creatures who knew nothing of the nobility of a life lived for the sake of art. ”

“ His resolution was increased ten-fold by the knowledge that Lady Hester loved Giovanni. Arthur's keen eye had detected her secret. He almost hated them both when the truth became plain to him. "Boy," he exclaimed, at length, "I've foully wronged you; but Jack's dead voice spoke again to-night in his melody. It led you to me, it made me resolve to shelter you (perchance it helped to rob me of her) ; but to-night it preached repentance. Take Hester and be happy. I can claim a younger brother's portion, and I have my profession to return to, though a selfish life has blunted that weapon I fear. ”

“ The art of making-up is one which every actor cultivates most assiduously. He can convey as much by his countenance as he can by the words which so glibly roll off his tongue. An extra wrinkle about the eye will whisper of anything between a diabolical murder and a hungry interior; a highly-coloured nose may either betray a tendency to a too frequent falling down in adoration of Bacchus, or the excessive colour may act as a silent reminder of a "cobd it de head" and the advisability of an immediate application of a small bottle of glycerine. ”

“ My love, darling.—Roger." Belcourt glanced at the telegram and saw that it was unintelligible, but a kind of alphabet on the table showed him that it had been written by signs agreed upon.
He stood as though thunderstruck. Suddenly Jeanne put on a hat and threw a long brown cloak over her stage dress.
"What are you going to do?" he exclaimed.
"I am going to Roger!"
"But, in Heaven's name, Jeanne, stay a little while. The curtain will be going up. Think what you are doing. You will be ruined—you will spoil your whole life. Wait till to-morrow!"
"Listen," said Jeanne, in a clear, decided tone. ”

“ As to whether the art of composition can be acquired or learned and cultivated, Mr. Blumenthal says:—
"There is no doubt that the rules, or what we may call the grammar of composition, can be acquired by clear heads just as the rules of any other grammar can be. But just as little as knowing the rules of language can make you write one phrase worth remembering, so will the life work of a mere musical scholar be cast into the shade by a few bars from the pen of a man of genius."
The two or three bars of music in the composer's autograph are taken from his well-known song "The Message." ”

“ As we were walking to the hotel, she said, suddenly:—
"If my husband is really out of his mind, we are ruined from a worldly point of view."
"I am sorry to hear that," I replied. "Have you no private means?"
"No," she answered. "My husband had his profession, and he was doing good work as a barrister. But there is no profession in the world which requires greater brain power than his. We have nothing to live on except what my husband earns."
"In case Mr. Mainwaring cannot earn money for a time, have you no relations who will help you?" ”

“ Gladstone, on the Treasury Bench, is constantly in a state of irrepressible energy. He converses eagerly with the colleague sitting on his right or left, driving home with emphatic gestures his arguments or assertions. In quieter mood he makes a running commentary on the speech that is going forward, his observations, I have been told, being refreshingly pungent and often droll. His deep, rich voice carries far. Occasionally it crosses the table, and the right honourable gentleman on his legs at the moment is embarrassed or encouraged by what he cannot help overhearing. ”

“ In the evening Carl arrived at the cottage of the Queen of the Fishes. As a return for the service she had rendered him, he gave her a golden apple and some drops from the marvellous spring.
As soon as the nine-hundred-years-old woman had drunk the water and eaten the apple, the wrinkles disappeared from her face; between her lips shone two rows of white teeth; her form became upright; and, in short, in place of a decrepit old woman, appeared a young girl with golden tresses, sparkling eyes, and rosy cheeks. ”

“ Lloyd, in reply to my question, "I practise here: but I fear that the [Pg 178] public little realize what practice means. I am never satisfied, though I invariably practise a new work every morning for two or three months. I first give my attention to the notes, then study the real meaning of the words. You then begin to see the beauty of the work and gain a knowledge of the composer's idea. Not until a work is learnt thoroughly do you begin to realise its countless gems, and the more I 'live' with the written genius of great composers, the greater pleasure do I find in their beauties." ”

“ Giovanni's chances of justice were small enough now. Blind to Lady Hester's indifference, Dalziel persisted in his wooing, and Lord Trenoweth was only too proud to countenance a match with the new Lord Alison. At last the girl yielded to her father's commands and her admirer's entreaties. She fancied it was the common lot of women to be sacrificed so; then, too, Giovanni had spoken no word of hope to her. She would submit and do her duty. Society smiled very sagely over the engagement, and said: "I told you so: she is too sensible a girl to resist long." ”

“ No one is more attentive than Edward Lloyd—no one more hearty in his approval.
"'Tis Morn" is the first glee, and Mr. Lloyd reminds me he has sung it many a time. A selection of T. Cooke's follows, and we listen to the stirring—
Strike, strike the lyre! Let music tell
The blessings spring shall scatter round.
Fragrance shall float along the gale,
And opening flow'rets paint the ground.
How pure and sweet sounds "By Celia's Arbour." Not a note is lost by those whose happiness it is to listen ”

“ Oratorios still hold their old power over the public; such standard works as the 'Messiah,' the 'Stabat Mater,' 'Elijah,' and the 'Hymn of Praise' can never die: they are the support and the backbone of the festivals. Such works are so great and so magnificent that they are as fresh to the people to-day, though the hearers may have heard them fifty times, as they will be to the next generation. They are the true heirlooms of all music lovers. ”

“ There were more objectionable things than cleanliness. He liked the smell of the earth about his things; upon his own shoulders a perfectly spotless shirt had a lazy, uncomfortable, all-over-alike sort of appearance, which wearied his eyes; but upon Lily Steve it was different. To have one perfectly clean man in the camp conferred a distinction upon it, which, no doubt, would make other camps envious. ”

“ That's the way to begin, James! If you want to win the love and respect of those humans of yours, strike terror into them at the start. You see, those you spare feel so proud of their own cleverness in being spared, and so relieved about it, that they are in the best of humours; and, looking about for somebody on whom to expend their good humour, they naturally fix on the figure that catches their eye first ”

“ Every composer should have a notebook of some sort to jot down ideas in when necessary. I may say, however, that I have carried about with me (mentally only) whole songs or movements perfected, sometimes for three or four years without writing down a note, and have afterwards used them in [Pg 209] almost the exact state in which they were photographed in my brain! I do not think it possible for composition to be taught or acquired, that is, real composition. I daresay that anyone with a certain musical taste can be taught to string a melody and accompaniment together ”

“ The presentments of the features of musical friends are numerous, and, as Mr. Lloyd takes up a picture of the late Barry Sullivan as Hamlet, he remembers that he was the last friend to see him when he was drawn out on to the balcony of his house at Brighton, just before he died. When we remember Mr. Lloyd's profession, one may be permitted to refer to the music-room as being the most used apartment in Hassendean. It is really a magnificent room, which the famous tenor had expressly built for himself; its proportions are perfect, its acoustic properties everything to be desired. ”

“ His wrinkles are nothing more or less than wicked. He is not content with resembling a cross between Paul Pry and a Drury Lane clown—he pitchforks the paint on, increases the size of his mouth by "bringing up" the corners to insure a perpetual smile, wears a wig which even a Joey Grimaldi would shudder at, dresses as no countryman ever dressed, and wears a huge sunflower from his back garden. ”

“ The sloth in this place is, in the eyes of most visitors, a mere mop in a heap of straw. Let but the keeper stir him up and he reveals himself gradually, the picture of a ragged, rascally mendicant—a dirty ruffian whose vocation can be nothing more laborious than extorting coppers on pretence of sweeping a crossing. A little more stirring, and he will reach for his perch and invert himself, to think things over. To him the floor is inconvenient, for it is his ceiling; anybody's ceiling is inconvenient to crawl about on. ”

“ The comet's more showy, and apparently better value; so that will please you best: and you won't notice its flimsiness as compared with the greater solidity of the little star."
"But what nonsense!" said James. "What in space would be the use of a comet or a star to one of us? What could we do with it?"
"You could give yours," said William, in that nasty tone of his, "to one of your humans. He would be delighted. It's exactly the kind of thing they are always longing for."
Then they looked about among humanity.
"I've chosen my baby," said James. ”

“ If it is an abstract composition, it is difficult to say what starts the machine. Ideas often come to me when I am in the train, or at less convenient times. Whenever possible, I write down a few bars before I forget them; but the main work is done sitting at a table with some music paper before me. I seldom go to the piano till I am well on with a composition, and I never seek for ideas at it. I have no regular or fixed time for composing—more often in the morning than at any other time; but sometimes I have not time to put a note on paper for months together. ”

“ My boy is fitting himself as a Healer."
"And my boy," said William, "is fitting himself for a Slayer."
"You are either mad," said James, "or are indulging in a pastime which is not your forte—a jest. You cannot seriously imagine that these humans will actually prefer one who slays them!"
"I know they will—it just tallies with their queer ways. They profess to hold human life at the highest value! That's not humbug on their parts, mind you—they are under the delusion that they do so hold it. Life is to them an object of joy, and the absence of it one of regret ”

“ Really the ant-eater scarcely seems a respectable character considered altogether. An animal with more than a foot of slender nose, expressly used for poking into other people's concerns (the ants') , an immeasurable tongue, no use for a tooth-brush, and an irregular longing for cockroaches for lunch—well, is such an animal quite respectable? Would you, for instance, tolerate him in your club?
NOT VERY WISE.
The only fairly respectable member of the Dasypidæ is the armadillo—unless you count the sloth's scientific indolence a claim to respectability; I rather think it is. ”