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Not satisfied with discarding the meagre accompaniments of the Italian composers, he even goes far beyond the tramontane masters in the multitude and use of instruments, and frequently smothers his concerted pieces and choruses by the overwhelming weight of his orchestra." But what would the "Harmonicon" have said, had it had Wagner's instrumentation before it?
"True," replied the professor, "and your planet turns out to be an insignificant harmonicon." "And the lancet," added Inaenhaus, "is a cork, with a whale-bone handle." Mesmer played on, and now his music seemed an entreaty to some invisible spirit to appear and reveal itself to mortal eyes. At least, so it sounded to the ears of his listeners.
A pause of perhaps a couple of minutes ensued, and then horns, drums, and harmonicon suddenly burst out with a loud confused fantasia, each man apparently doing his utmost to drown the noise of the others.
Of its first performance, a correspondent of the "Harmonicon," who was present, writes: "The first act, which lasted two hours and fifteen minutes, was received very coldly, with the exception of one passage in the overture, which overture, however, was unconscionably long.
In the breath of the wind these slips, with all their notes varied like those of a harmonicon, gave forth a most melancholy murmuring. It seemed as though they were breathing musical oxygen. It suited Robur's whim to run close up to this aerial orchestra, and the "Albatross" slowed as she glided through the sonorous waves which the kites gave off through the atmosphere.
But he did not dwell upon this revealing moment; it was enough that at last he could stop lying, and that Eleanor would help him about Jacky! He called her back from the window and made her sit down again beside him, pretending not to see how her hands were trembling. Then he went on talking about Jacky. "His latest achievement is an infernal mouth harmonicon."
The parlor was dark; for though it was a day of sunshine and merry May wind, Gussie kept the shutters bowed, but Cyrus could see the pale intensity of his visitor's face. There was a moment's silence, broken by a distant harmonicon. "Mr. Price," said Mary North, with pale, courageous lips, "you must stop your father." Cyrus opened his weak mouth to ask an explanation, but Gussie rushed in.
The old man beckoned mysteriously. "Cy, my boy, come in here;" he hunted about in his pocket for the key of the cupboard; "Cyrus, I'll tell you what happened: that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon.
Its grimy untidiness matched the old Captain's clothes, but it was his one spot of refuge in his own house; here he could scatter his tobacco ashes almost unrebuked, and play on his harmonicon without seeing Gussie wince and draw in her breath; for Mrs. Cyrus rarely entered the "cabin." "I worry so about its disorderliness that I won't go in," she used to say, in a resigned way.
"Well, I merely heard you above the steam harmonicon at the switchback," said Miss Dale. "I don't know whether you call THAT holloaing." "Oh, Miss Dale," said my wife, "we are in such a fatal " "Pickle," I suggested, and she instantly adopted the word in her extremity.
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