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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
CENTENNIAL NOTES BY OUR RURAL CON-
TRIBUTOR.
er, and with the varying notes produced by different
tension of the strings, accompanied the recital of his
mighty deeds to the maiden of his heart.
Ambition, ever present and powerful in love and war,
soon found methods of improvement, and thus came in-
to existence the harp, lute, and, eventually all other
stringed instruments. In some similar way, from a
simple reed has grown and developed the flute, the
shrill tongued trumpet, and the organ,—little by little,
piece afterpiece, till now the land is filled with harmony,
where for untold ages only the deep roll of thunder, the
crash of the hurricane, or feathered warblers, antetypes,
of coming opera singers, broke the prevailing silence.
Man's progress in the direction of science and art.
since the days when he, an almost nude dweller in the
" From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began;
From harmony to harmony through all the compass of
the notes it ran
The diapason closing full in man."
T
HUS sang old John Dryden, with the keen pro-
phetic instinct of the poet, many generations
before our modern scientists had demonstrated
from the book of nature that man was the apex, the sub-
lime conclusion of terrestrial creation.
Before his advent all other creatures had come armed
and equipped for the battle of life, the great struggle
for existence, with instincts that never erred; the nest
of the first linnet was as beautifully woven, the cell of
the earliest bee as perfect a hexagon, as those of to-day.
Each individual or family came into life prepared for its
conditions; and, having filled its allotted space depart-
ed, leaving (possibly) their bones as the only record of
having lived.
But with this new arrival came a change in the con-
dition of things; man proved to be a restless, inquisitive,
inventive being, gifted with great powers of observation
and discrimination. The roaming denizens of the forests
and fields were soon taught to have a wholesome re-
spect for this apparently helpless stranger, whose teeth
were useless for attack or defense, and whose claws
were but as the rudiments of their own powerful weap-
ons; and their ideas of security were rudely dispelled at
the sound of his twanging bow string and the ponderous
blows of his club (likewise a most reliable and effective
weapon in these later days).
The hum of the bow-string imparted one of the first
lessons concerning the superiority of mind over matter,
of brain over brute force, and demonstrated that man's
capability and power for good or evil stretched away be-
yond the reach of his claws.
Potent in war and the chase, the simple vibrating
string soon began to exert in other directions a benign
and salutary influence on these ruthless and untamed
warriors. Some love-sick "Romeo" of prehistoric time
conceived the idea of putting two or three bows togeth-
GEO.
STECK & CO'S. CONTINGENT.
rocks and caves, floated himself across lakes and rivers
on an inflated sheep skin, has been a continual battle
and necessarily slow, like the beginning of some great
river easily obstructed and turned from the direct
course. The existence of natural laws must be made
known and their principles to some extent understood
before he could apply to the improvement of his condi-
tion, or the supply of his wants, any portion of the
mighty forces with which he was surrounded ; and
when some primeval Roebling or Edison solved pro-
blems away beyond the capacity of their fellows, it was
likely to bring to them only the unenviable distinction
of having communion with the powers of darkness and
as a fitting reward a bed of burning fagots.
So far as history has opened to us the dark pages of
the past, it teems with stories of persecution and abuse*
even unto death, by the ignorant and superstitions, and
of their brutality to men whose shoestrings they were
unworthy to tie.
We have to congratulate our readers, as we feel grate-
ful ourselves, that we have found our lot cast in a more
generous epoch, where the so-called inventor is in no dan-
ger of being accused of having a friendly compact with
Mephistopheles, or of being at war with all the heavenly
hosts, but is received as a public benefactor, an expert
adaptor and contrivor in the application of natural and
mechanical forces to the service and comfort of man-
kind. Not entirely has the old carping spirit of objection
to innovation departed from among us, as but lately your
correspondent has had reason to observe that spirit,
born of preconceived prejudice and professional bias.
As I stood beside a piano listening to the rippling notes
and exquisite harmony of the " Brook," here a spark-
ling rush of bright glittering notes, there a soft musi-
cal gurgle of liquid purity from under some mossy
bank, methought some modern Aladin of the lamp had
commanded his waiting gerie to give him music of the
fountains of Lebanon ; and as the ivory keys went up
and down without the aid of human fingers, I looked
around for the glittering spires and shining windows of
the palace created in a night. What is it? Where did
you get it ? Have these Centennial times wafted us back
over many centuries to the days of enchantment and
the Arabian Nights? Oh, no, it is only an ordinary pi-