Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/173

Rh And "Sweet Kitty Wells":

Hear what kind old Thackeray says:

I am afraid that the old organ grinder already mentioned, never realized the power of music to incite to tears, laughter, or dancing, or to draw not only men, but beasts and birds to the feet of the player, as it has been stated in popular story. He was scarcely able to lure spectators enough into the museum, with all the attraction of the exhibition thrown into the scale, to pay its scanty expenses. Yet we hear in a hyperbolic ditty how, with no instrument but his mouth, a country boy goes out at nightfall, and charms all inferior animate creation with his whistling:

In the old traditions we have stories of the wondrous power of music, in the fables of Orpheus and Pan, and in the accounts of the horn of Oberon, which would make every one dance who was not of irreproachable character; of the harp of Sigurd, which caused inanimate objects to caper in the wildest confusion; of the Scotch Glenkindie's harp, which would

and of the Kandele, invented by Wäinämöinen, the supreme god