the banjo, and which reappears, somewhat refined, or at least somewhat
Frenchified, in the _Bamboula_ and other Creole airs. Thence, in an
ascending series, but connected with it, we have old Spanish melodies,
then the Arabic, and here we finally cross the threshold into mystery,
midnight, and "caterwauling." I do not know that I can explain the fact
why the more "barbarous" music is, the more it is beloved of man; but I
think that the principle of the _refrain_, or repetition in music, which
as yet governs all decorative art and which Mr. Whistler and others are
endeavoring desperately to destroy, acts in music as a sort of animal
magnetism or abstraction, ending in an _extase_. As for the fascination
which such wild melodies exert, it is beyond description. The most
enraptured audience I ever saw in my life was at a Coptic wedding in
Cairo, where one hundred and fifty guests listened, from seven P.M. till
three A.M., and Heaven knows how much later, to what a European would
call absolute jangling, yelping, and howling.

The real medium, however, between what I have, for want of better words,
called wild and tame music exists only in that of the Russian gypsies.
These artists, with wonderful tact and untaught skill, have succeeded, in
all their songs, in combining the mysterious and maddening charm of the
true, wild Eastern music with that of regular and simple melody,
intelligible to every Western ear. I have never listened to the singing
or playing of any distinguished artist--and certainly never of any
far-famed amateur--without realizing that neither words nor melody was of
the least importance, but that the man's manner of performance or display
was everything. Now, in enjoying gypsy singing, one feels at once as if
the vocalists had entirely forgotten self, and were carried away by the
bewildering beauty of the air and the charm of the words. There is no
self-consciousness, no vanity,--all is real. The listener feels as if he
were a performer; the performer is an enraptured listener. There is no
soulless "art for the sake of art," but art for direct pleasure.

"We intend to sing only Romany for _you_, _rya_," said the young lady to
my left, "and you will hear our real gypsy airs. The _Gaji_ [Russians]
often ask for songs in our language, and don't get them. But you are a
Romanichal, and when you go home, far over the _baro kalo pani_ [the
broad black water, that is, the ocean], you shall tell the Roma