Page:Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) And Two Other Reminiscences.djvu/62

46 and colour, skilful in invention; but people do not expect you to sit down and admire wall-paper, or promise you 'wall-paper at eight.' Neither do they put an extinguisher over any girl who does not go with the wall-paper, or expect you to dress in neutral tint on account of it, and they are not hurt if you go away without seeming to see it. Gustatory harmony, too, is very delicious. Yet there is no hush during dinner; they do not insist upon a persistent gnawing in honour of the feast. But these musical people! their god is their piano. They set up an idol in their salon, and command all the world to bow down to it. They found a priestcraft of pianists, and an Inquisition of fiddlers. When I came away they were all crowded round a violin, the women especially. They could not have fussed more if it had been a baby. They stroked it and admired its figure. It had rather a fashionable figure, but the neck was too long. ..."

I began to suspect the cause of this bitterness.