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"Modern music, then, could not be in ancient times, for want of modern instruments," said Campbell; "and, in like manner, Gothic architecture could not exist until vaulting was brought to perfection. Great mechanical inventions have taken place, both in architecture and in music, since the age of basilicas and Gregorians; and each science has gained by it."
"Pardon me," interrupted Bateman, "Gregorians were Jewish, not Pagan." "Be it so, for argument sake," said Campbell; "still, at least, they were not of Christian origin. Next, both the old music and the old architecture were inartificial and limited, as methods of exhibiting their respective arts. You can't have a large Grecian temple, you can't have a long Gregorian Gloria."
"I don't see that at all," answered Bateman; "people often think they differ, merely because they have not courage to talk to each other." "A good remark," thought Charles; "what a pity that Bateman, with so much sense, should have so little common sense!" "Well, then," said Campbell, "my quarrel with Gothic and Gregorians, when coupled together, is, that they are two ideas, not one.
He reads the lessons in what he calls a devotional way, which consists in reciting all episodes alike, the song of Deborah or the victories of Gideon, as if they were melancholy and pathetic reflections. He is fond of Gregorians and plain-song. The choirmen consist of a scrofulous invalid, his own gardener and coachman, and a bankrupt carpenter, given to drink and profuse repentance.
Just now it's smooth enough and, of course, the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet for a month or two till the excitement about the amnesty blows over; but they are not likely to let the power be taken out of their hands without a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter is half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about our ears, plotting and intriguing, and poisoning off everybody they can't bribe."
Smith, who had been listening to these remarks with acquiescence, but who now manifested some obvious confusion. "A brown Gregorian," Mr. Amarinth repeated. "All combinations of sounds convey a sense of colour to the mind. Gregorians are obviously of a rich and sombre brown, just as a Salvation Army hymn is a violent magenta."
"Or of different ideas," said Charles, "the cassock Catholic, the coat Protestant." "The reverse," said Bateman; "the cassock is old Hooker's Anglican habit: the coat comes from Catholic France." "Anyhow, it is what Mr. Reding calls a mixture of ideas," said Campbell; "and that's the difficulty I find in uniting Gothic and Gregorians."
Excepting his extra intellect, there was no boyhood in him. A town-bred scholar, a straight constitutional upon a clean road was his wildest dream of exercise; he had never mounted a horse, did not know a chicken from a partridge, except on the table, was too short-sighted for pictures, and esteemed no music except Gregorians.
Church music might seem a suitable subject, but the London chorister could not abstain from criticising St. Oswald's and contemning the old-fashioned practices of the Cathedral, which of course Lance considered himself bound to defend, till the very names of Gregorians and Anglicans became terrible to Cherry as the watchwords of a wrangling match.
The religions are almost equally numerous. The statistics speak of Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Gregorians, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Mennonites, Separatists, Pietists, Karaim Jews, Talmudists, Mahometans, and numerous Russian sects, such as the Molokanye and the Skoptsi or Eunuchs. America herself could scarcely show a more motley list in her statistics of population.
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