Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/268

 pieces in his tail-coat pocket, and used at night to blow it until it seemed that he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away at the keys!

"There never can have been anybody in the world who played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I have ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial The influence of the strain upon me was first to make me think of all my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back; then to take away my appetite; and lastly to make me so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open."

Then, again, the description of Dick Swiveller (Old Curiosity Shop), who, hearing that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, took to flute-playing as "a good, sound, dismal occupation," and for the greater part of the night lay on his back, half in and half out of bed, with a small oblong music book, endeavouring to play "Away with Melancholy" very slowly, and repeating one note a great many times before he could find the next, thereby maddening the inhabitants of all the surrounding houses. No wonder he received notice to quit next morning. As Goethe says, "There is scarcely a more melancholy suffering to be undergone than what is forced on us by the neighbourhood of an incipient player on the flute or violin." The young gentleman at Mrs. Todgers' musical party (Martin Chusslewit) blows his melancholy into a flute: "he didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better."

So, too, Bulwer Lytton in What Will He Do With It? speaks of Dick Fairfield as "the cleverest boy at the school, who unluckily took to the flute and unfitted