The Russellville Democrat., 1880-02-19
The Piano at Home.
N. Y. Times.

soulful, the pipe-organ tlis iticst domes
 tlc arid social, of all ini trument of music
 The statistics of the latter's production
 are surprising. The t25 makers in the
 four largest cities or this country produce
 30,000 pianos year, for Whicl tha publ
 lie pay some S10,a00,000. Every steam
 ship must have one; every hotel or public nall requires one or more; the boarding
 school has from one to thirty, and the parlor which lacks one is thought to be lncompletely furnished. This is within the borders of modern civilization; be. yond them, however, stray piano drifts now and then, sometimes as strange al
 most Tn its surroundings as we're the piano@stoels which Eere swept into Mack. erviiie by lhe foul huh1an turrefit that roared through New York streets In the draft riot of 1863. The piano has nc git of perpetual youth. Its melodious life IS, perhaps, five to twenty years, Its surrounding life may be twice as long
 but what becomes of the old pianos! Fire carries off some; during the war the few which were involved went a variety of ways, sometimes being used as operating tables by the surgeons; but nobody sees pianos go for kindlingwood. If they go to the domestic exile in gar rets, the garrets must be full of them; they cannot drop into cracks as pins do, and whether they disintegrate slowly blow out through the key-hole on Christ mas Eve, or are borne away by rag carts, IS yet mystery,
 Their place in society while in the flesh may be counted another. It can not be called a part of the present craze for art, for It began quarter of a cen tufy ago-this dictum that girls must have an accomplishment. Anna shall take" music lessons, Mary shall draw and daub, Jennie shall do impossibilities in worsteds on canvas, Cecelia shall scream up and down the ladder of vocal gymnastics, and Cinderella-who is last and of no account at ail for princes shall hel D mother in the kitchen. If 1 the girls lack capacity. they must have one, fol father IS able to pay. Accom- l plishments are allotted around the circle, as though no girl not remarkable in any thing ln particular had no prospects III the matrimonial market, and when her market IS once made, Filia's easel is put away and her piano gets rest. The patient thing has usually we'll earned it, [ for although the decorative outbreak | may possibly cause some diversion of labor, the piano is peculiarly the victim of feminine am oition. Is 1t because the piano is the nucleus of parlor furniture, and the parlor is for her daughter and her company, or because the white handed be-ringed duly, and as yet inno- cent of work is thought to be most cap tivating when threading the maZes of the keyboard, that row of steel wires, once stretched in box, can get so little h.1I,. h escaping from prospective unpleas- antness had enwrapped about bis heroic limbs the piano cover instead of his wife's crinoline, he would have shown more appropriateness in appropriation, for all the piano wants is to De let alone; on the simple condition that it is not to be stirred up, it is the most harmless oi domestic animals.
 But stirred up and irritated it is malig- nant truly, and retorts upon the tor mentor of all the voices of the fnenag- erie and the vices of our best society. It fibs at first in the political way. It is shoekingly out of practicei it can not possibly play without its notes; It has a bad cold and is very hoarse. But after irritating us gently with excuses it dances up and down its many octave of complaint, in infinite variations of the desperate inquiry, "Why can't-youlet me-alone-lovei The accordeon and the organ drag music out through a hole, "as when" (see Vergill cats tail, un- detached from the owner, is drawn through a knot hole in a box; but the piano has more voices than an army of back yard fences. Yet it plays many parts and serves many purposes. It fills gaps in conversation, because Tn so- ciety it is often impossible to start con versation until the piano opens its jaws; then begins the rivalry between chatter and tattle-the piano really must be si- fenced. It serves useful end by con- pelhng "us two" to sit closer, that we make ourselves heard. It is especially serviceable as next door implement that our neighbors forget us not. It may ramp all night if it likes, for the law has not declared it nuisance, and the walls protect it from missiles. Shall it not do what it likes in it's own house?
 He couldn's see what so many keys were needed for, said an old-time deacon of the bass-viol and tuning-fork famil- iarity, on first contemplating the seven- octaved duplication of the old eight note scale" The simple frontiersman, on first hearing the piano with a vocal ri- valry, went straight to the marrow of the subject by begging the lady exhib- itor to please "claw the ivory and howl again" The language was idiomatic, but entirely correct. For the tremelo that wabbles, the 'fortameto" that driz- zles down the scale like a house-maid falling down stairs in the house-cleaning time, the explosive" shrieks that seek the marrow like bullets in hurry, the already destructive pitch which crazy fashion has actually ordered screwed up and galloped over, and hit again, and so forth the ivory is clawed.
 If Puella only played it well. she might play it even more and yet not play it so much; lhis is true. like all other paradoxes. Mir Charles Reade, in brilliant shower of antithesis, says that women are magnificent at overfows but can never make sustained effort, hence that they produce no dramas, no musical works, etc. Certainly, it is only rarely that one of them plays the piano with soul and feeling-they are automat- ons tor automata?) of mere execution. They begin by not understanding the instrument. They want to get power out of 1t; whereas it has none, only noise, and only little of that; in tine pursuit Of 'ume"-an important thing, but made unduly important--thev overlook accent, the lie of every composition; they are misled by wrong nomenclature, and sell dom know how to do anything but mis- use the so-called loud" pedal; they ! thump with their arms whereas the