It was the musicians of the band of the Titanic--poor men,
paid a few dollars a week--who played the music to keep up
the courage of the souls aboard the sinking ship.
"The way the band kept playing was a noble thing," says
the wireless operator. "I heard it first while we were working
the wireless, when there was a rag-time tune for us, and the
last I saw of the band, when I was floating, struggling in the
icy water, it was still on deck, playing `Autumn.' How those
brave fellows ever did it I cannot imagine."
Perhaps that music, made in the face of death, would not
have satisfied the exacting critical sense. It may be that the
chilled fingers faltered on the pistons of the cornet or at the
valves of the French horn, that the time was irregular and
that by an organ in a church, with a decorous congregation,
the hymns they chose would have been better played and
sung. But surely that music went up to God from the souls
of drowning men, and was not less acceptable than the song
of songs no mortal ear may hear, the harps of the seraphs
and the choiring cherubim. Under the sea the music-makers
lie, still in their fingers clutching the broken and battered
means of melody; but over the strident voice of warring
winds and the sound of many waters there rises their chant
eternally; and though the musicians lie hushed and cold at
the sea's heart, their music is heard forevermore.
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