"Of some kinds of music, yes, Miss Skinner, but you know I never did like
modern music."
"Isn't that rather dreadful?--Don't you think you rather"--she was going
to have added, "ought to?" but she left it unsaid, feeling doubtless that
she had sufficiently conveyed her meaning.
"I would like modern music, if I could; I have been trying all my life to
like it, but I succeed less and less the older I grow."
"And pray, where do you consider modern music to begin?"
"With Sebastian Bach."
"And don't you like Beethoven?"
"No, I used to think I did, when I was younger, but I know now that I
never really liked him."
"Ah! how can you say so? You cannot understand him, you never could say
this if you understood him. For me a simple chord of Beethoven is
enough. This is happiness."
Ernest was amused at her strong family likeness to her father--a likeness
which had grown upon her as she had become older, and which extended even
to voice and manner of speaking. He remembered how he had heard me
describe the game of chess I had played with the doctor in days gone by,
and with his mind's ear seemed to hear Miss Skinner saying, as though it
were an epitaph:--
"Stay:
I may presently take
A simple chord of Beethoven,
Or a small semiquaver
From one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words.
Pages:
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694