t I beg pardon, madam,--I interrupted you.

"The soul-stirring, madly exciting, and martial strains of the
Racoczys--one of the Revolutionary airs--has just died upon the ear.
A brief interval of rest has passed. Now listen with bated breath to
that recitative in the minor key,--that passionate wail, that
touching story, the gypsies' own music, which rises and falls on the
air. Knives and forks are set down, hands and arms hang listless,
all the seeming necessities of the moment being either suspended or
forgotten,--merged in the memories which those vibrations, so akin to
human language, reawaken in each heart. Eyes involuntarily fill with
tears, as those pathetic strains echo back and make present some
sorrow of long ago, or rouse from slumber that of recent time. . . .

"And now, the recitative being ended, and the last chord struck, the
melody begins, of which the former was the prelude. Watch the
movements of the supple figure of the first violin, standing in the
centre of the other musicians, who accompany him softly. How every
nerve is _en rapport_ with his instrument, and how his very soul is
speaking through it! See how gently he draws the bow across the
trembling strings, and how lovingly he lays his cheek upon it, as if
listening to some responsive echo of his heart's inmost feeling, for
it is his mystic language! How the instrument lives and answers to
his every touch, sending forth in turn utterances tender, sad, wild,
and joyous! The audience once more hold their breath to catch the
dying tones, as the melody, so rich, so beautiful, so full of pathos,
is drawing to a close. The tension is absolutely painful as the
gypsy dwells on the last lingering note, and it is a relief when,
with a loud and general burst of sound, every performer starts into
life and motion. _Then_ what crude and wild dissonances are made to
resolve themselves into delicious harmony! What rapturous and fervid
phrases, and what energy and impetuosity, are there in every motion
of the gypsies' figures, as their dark eyes glisten and emit flashes
in unison with the tones!"

The writer is gifted in giving words to gypsy music. One cannot say, as
the inexhaustible Cad writes of Niagara ten times on a page in the
Visitors' Book, that it is indescribable. I think that if language means
anything this music h