"I wonder how you will endure the music of the immortals, that God
listens to, if you get with the saved by and bye?" I said, impulsively.
He shook his head doubtfully, but gave me at the same time a look of
surprise.
"I do not ask for anything better than Beethoven," he replied quietly.
Some way I felt saddened. The Creator was so much beyond the highest
object of his creative skill, even though that is or might be one so
gloriously endowed as Beethoven; it seemed strange that a thinking,
intellectual being would grasp the less when he might lay hold on the
greater. I glanced around on the gay, richly-dressed throng--pretty
women in garments as harmonious in form and color almost as the music
that was thrilling at least some of us; some of them fair enough, I
fancied, to be walking in a better world than ours; then, by some strange
freak of the imagination, I fell to thinking of the poverty and sorrow,
and breaking hearts all about us, until the music seemed to change to a
minor chord; and away back of all other sounds I seemed to hear the sob
and moan of the dying and broken-hearted. Perhaps some new chord had been
touched in my own heart that had never before responded to human things;
for in spite of myself I sat and wept with a full, aching heart. I tried
to shield my face with my fan and at last regained my composure, and
tried, in sly fashion, to dry my eyes with the bit of lace I called my
handkerchief, and which I found a very poor substitute for the
substantial lawn hitherto used.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127