, 1891-11-25

some of the worst
and say on paper
what my tongue fairly throbbed to utter
personally to the objects of my wrath.
Foremost among these / place spoiled
children and public pianos. Children
and music are the two chiefest blessings
in life, but / am writing of spoiled chill
dren and public pianos, and l am per-
fectly sure every honest and fearless
traveller, or for that matter stayer-at-
home, will agree with me that more dis
comfort is to be obtained from these two
sources in a given time han days Of
peace can compensate.
One lies in ones berth or on a lounge
in the saloon On board ship, haunted by
the melancholy and vague forebodings
which either precede, follow or serve as
substitute for NAL de mer, and although
life is not apparently worth the living.
one endures it with a certain amount of
stoical philosophy until somebody sits
down at the piano and with a prelimi-
nary skirmish up and down the key
board, like the howl Of a wild beast in
sight of its prey, or the war whoop
of a band of Comanches, begins the
''Blue Danube" waltz or the Guards
March," or somebody's dream, or the
other ones cradle song, or some fright
full attempt at Wagner, or perhaps only
an etude and a few chromatic scales.
Whatever it is it is pretty sure to be i'll
played, and the agony of assisting at all
those false notes, Jidscos, crashes, trying
agains and frantic attempts at plunging
through by main force, is a foretaste of
purgatory to which one should not be
called upon to submit before death.
Or if, by some chance, the pianist is
competent and the piano in tune, there
is something irritating and upsetting
about music when one is not well and is
longing for quiet. L like music as well
as most people, although / don't believe
most people like it as well as they pre-
tend to, but l don't like it out of its
proper setting and occasion. The opera
is a necessity of civilization, and
body to play and sing at a reception is
Indispensable, and "a little music on
the water goes well with moonlight,
romance and all that, but music when
one is gastrically unhappy, or try
ing to sleep, or to read, or to find
out where ones money has all flown,
or to write a letter even while one
loathes the pen-under all these circum.
stances music, no matter how good, is
ri impertinence, an annoyance, yes, a
nuisance, and l always shiver when, in
going through the saloon of a teaJner or
of a hotel, l see n piano open and grin
ming defiance at me from ever one of
its sixty teeth. AS for hand organs,
street bands, ballad singers and all their
brethren, the world has its opinion and
Ineed not add mine, but if l were an
autocrat l would certainly place every
variety of music under strict regula-
tons, and see if it might be possible to
prevent it from ever again becoming q
public nuisance.
AS for spoiled children, l am afraid it
would be more difficult to abate this
nuisance, and yet it is in some respects a
heavier one.
Probably there are no other children
in the world so bright, so handsome, and
yet so spoiled and 30 irrepressible as
American children.
The national spirit of independence
develops earlier than the national self
respect and self government, which, tcith
the Independence, make American adults
the most respectable men in the world,
but the child the most impossible in the
world, unless brought up by exceptional
parents, and of course all my friends are
of this exceptional class.
But the child whom one often meets
on steamers, and at hotels, and in picture
galleries, and in all public places is sim
ply a terror. Forward and unabashed,
it takes possession of the best seat, the
best window, the best coigne de Udntdge,
ruthlessly trampling on ones ~draperies,
laying sticky fingers on ones sleeve or
glove, pushing, elbowing and g~rasping
until one is glad to yield for the sake of
escape. If conversation is attempted,
this kind of child either obtrudes his
OWL questions and comments, or persists
in forcing his mother, cousin or aunt to
attend to him and his own topics to the
destruction of the conversation
At table this sort of child demands
everything and all at once, absorbs the
servants and occupies the attention of
its natural guardians, who vainly try to
convince him that lobster salad, milk,
pickles and cheese will not be likely to
agree with him, and will ''oppose one
another" as they say in Spanish, in the
course of digestion. He persists in his
own selection, and after dinner is either
cross as a little fiend or i'll, so that MAN.
ma must retire with him and come back
to discourse upon the extraordinary deli
cacy of Tommy or Totty's constitution
and the methods she has pursued to keep
the dear little thing alive.
y Sometimes a troop of these darlings,
on a wet day at sea, turn the grand sa.
loon into a happy hunting ground and
play at wild Indians or African hunters
in chase of roaring wild animals, or turn
themselves into a fire brigade and extin
guish mighty con~fagrations, their nam
mas either looking on with smiling ap
WORTHY OF IA Trial.