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After a little bustle of compliments and arrangement, chairs were found for the visitors at the far end of the room, and the meeting fell back into its former aspect. One of our unlooked-for visitors sat on the chair near the old grand piano, and I could see her white hand, ungloved and with a jewelled bracelet sparkling at the wrist, resting on the key-board.
This was a life-size and remarkably life-like figure, and when worked from a key-board similar to that of a piano it actually uttered words and sentences with surprising distinctness. It was exhibited for several months in London and elsewhere in England, but though it was really a wonderful machine and attracted the earnest attention of some people, it was not a popular success.
The brain performs substantially the same function for the body which the key-board does for the piano, or which the central office of the telephone system performs for its various subscribers. Magnetism received from the exterior of the body is transmitted to the brain where it produces a result. This result in turn is transmitted to various portions of the body.
Jimmy did not know the City, but he knew a good deal of mankind, and he gleaned something of the spirit and traditions of that office, as his eyes wandered from the rows of black, shiny deed boxes to the equally shiny pate of the managing clerk, and then to the drab-looking girl typist, pale-faced and narrow-chested, who seemed to finger the key-board as though the maddening click of her abominable machine had killed any individuality she might once have had, and turned her into a mere part of the mechanism of the City.
Far from being ambitious of the uproar of an orchestra, Chopin was satisfied to see his thought integrally produced upon the ivory of the key-board; succeeding in his aim of losing nothing in power, without pretending to orchestral effects, or to the brush of the scene-painter.
The senior truckman cast his professional eye at the vacant space, and spoke: "You can put it right there," said he. "There won't be no room fur the stool to go behind it; but if you put the key-board to the front, an' open the winder, you can stand outdoors an' play."
After observing that the outward sense no longer co-operated with the inward mind of the great composer, and that, consequently, "the outpourings of his fancy became scarcely intelligible," Schindler continues: "Sometimes he would lay his left hand flat upon the key-board, and thus drown, in discordant noise, the music to which his right was feelingly giving utterance."
There was a strip of plaster marring the smooth cheek, and at the cashier's words she looked round at the young officers, flashed them a cheerful smile, and returned to her hammering on the key-board. "My word, Mademoiselle," said one of the officers. "Near thing, eh? I wonder you are not scared to carry on." The girl turned a slightly puzzled glance on them.
"Indeed," said the ex-boarder, "if it were not for people tripping over the wires, I could rig up attachments by which I could sit in the parlor, and by using pedals and a key-board, I could do all the work of this house without getting out of my easy-chair." One of the most peculiar features of the establishment was the servant's room.
Nature herself has given many hints along this line of experimentation. Long ago it was seen that the writing sand sprinkled on the sounding board of the piano would under the influence of a chord struck from the keys arrange itself in geometrical figures. It was also seen that a discord sounded from the key-board would break the figures into chaos and confusion.
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