--I don't
like your chopped music anyway. That woman--she had more sense in her
little finger than forty medical societies--Florence Nightingale--says
that the music you pour out is good for sick folks, and the music you
pound out isn't. Not that exactly, but something like it. I have been
to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white
muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it.
She--gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a
whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if
she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her
wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her
fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the
key-board, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those
two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of
tigers coming down on a flock of black and white sheep, and the piano
gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop,--so still
you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl,
as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once,
and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down,
back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and
mice more than like anything I call music.
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