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, "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."
After a pause during which neither of the men spoke, the parson went on:
"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, "you
are a discord of the bagpipe and the harp: there's the trouble with you.
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