am. Not to hear me--I am not
so perfect a player that I should wish it--but to see him. Captain
Beauchamp may now be coming at any instant.'

Mr. Lydiard added, 'I have an appointment with him here for this
evening.'

'You build a cathedral of sound in the organ,' said Dr. Shrapnel,
casting out a league of leg as he sat beside his only half-persuaded
fretful guest. 'You subject the winds to serve you; that's a gain. You
do actually accomplish a resonant imitation of the various instruments;
they sing out as your two hands command them--trumpet, flute, dulcimer,
hautboy, drum, storm, earthquake, ethereal quire; you have them at your
option. But tell me of an organ in the open air? The sublimity would
vanish, ma'am, both from the notes and from the structure, because
accessories and circumstances produce its chief effects. Say that
an organ is a despotism, just as your piano is the Constitutional
bourgeois. Match them with the trained orchestral band of skilled
individual performers, indoors or out, where each grasps his instrument,
and each relies on his fellow with confidence, and an unrivalled concord
comes of it. That is our republic each one to his work; all in union!
There's the motto for us! Then you have music, harmony, the highest,
fullest, finest! Educate your men to form a band, you shame dexterous
trickery and imitation sounds. Then for the difference of real
instruments from clever shams! Oh, ay, one will set your organ
going; that is, one in front, with his couple of panting air-pumpers
behind--his ministers!' Dr. Shrapnel laughed at some undefined mental
image, apparently careless of any laughing companionship. 'One will do
it for you, especially if he's born to do it. Born!' A slap of the knee
reported what seemed to be an immensely contemptuous sentiment. 'But
free mouths blowing into brass and wood, ma'am, beat your bellows and
your whifflers; your artificial choruses--crash, crash! your unanimous
plebiscitums! Beat them? There's no contest: we're in another world;
we're in the sun's world,--yonder!'

Miss Denham's opening notes on the despised piano put a curb on the
doctor. She began a Mass of Mozart's, without the usual preliminary
rattle of the keys, as of a crier announcing a performance, straight to
her task, for which Rosamund thanked her, liking that kind of composed
simplicity: she thanked her more for cutting short the doctor's
fanatical nonsense. It was perceptible to her that a species of