The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-12-07
Can Yeu Forxirc Her:

Il left home because they made me
practice four hours day" The speak.
sr was young lady of the Northwest.
She made the remark. q few days since,
in response to a question put to her
concerning. her mysterious disappear
ance from the family circle. 1t goes
without saying that she ought not to
have run away. Her conduct in doing
so was to the last degree reprehensible.
The distress it caused her immediate
relatives and friends it would be diff
cult to overestimate. All right-minded
people who read of her escapade are as
oue in pronouncing her an extremely
naughty girl, and in earnestly hoping
that she will never do SO again.
Nevertheless, there is something to
be said on this matter from another
point of view-the girls point. That
this young person was compelled to
offer violence to an inoffensive piano
four hours out of every twenty-four is
an extenuating circumstance in the first
degree. We say offer violence, because
the girls testimony is that she was
"made" to practice. Evidently she
had no ear for music, no instructive or
acquired liking for the instrument to
which she was daily summoned. She
was pianist not by natural selection
but by parental constraint. The nat
ural consequence was that the many
hours she was forced to spend in COM
munion with her piano grew to be so
much torture time to her. And no
doubt if the piano could speak it would
state that it felt as bad about the prac-
ticirg as the girl herself did; that the
aversion was mutual and cordial on
both sides. As to the anguish which
the soulless and perfunctory practicing
caused to householders living with
in hearing distance of the piano,
little need be said, since it all
can better be imagined. Four hours
dav of Exercises" or even of
1.-The Maiden's Prayer" tend to weary
the average tympanum, even when the
performer is a born musician in the
direct line from Orpbeus. Perhaps the
girl ran away as much for the pianos
and the neighbors' sake as for her own.
Indeed, remembering woman's sensitive
nature. it is but fair to assume that
while she might have endured the con-
secutiye four hours a day pract'cing
without tiinching, it was the realization
Of the fact that she was a cause of Of
tense to Others that caused her suddenly
to tear herself away from her child
hoods home, and let
'.silence like poultice come
To heal the wounds of sound"
Let not these considerations be under
stood rs advanced with view of iusti-
fying the young runaway. Our only
aim is to mete out to her simple Justice
and to prevent her motives from being
Like many another
member of her sex, she reached wrong
conclusion from right premises. She
was perfectly correct in assuming that
. girl with no taste for music has no
call to the piano. But such postulate
did not necessitate her leaving home.
With very little alteration-it is only
necessary to disembowel ia piano be.
comes -frst-rate family refrigerator.
And, doubtless. if she had insisted with
the tears of earnestness in her eyes, and
a strong petition signed by all the
neighbors in her hand in behalf of such
an alteration, she would have been al
lowed to have her own way. In a
moment, however, she pro-
ceeded to extremes. Can you forgive
her?-N Y. Tribune.