The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-19
THE VOICES or THE NIGHT.
Sounds Heard In the City I'm summer. When
All the Windows Are Open.

Now are they heard again, minus few
old ones, perhaps. but with as many new
ones added" said Mr.. Gozzleton "the
myriad voices of the summer night, that
come to lis at this season in the city, when
all the windows are open and people live
more or less out of doors.
we hear now once more the talking Of
the people sitting on the steps across the
wav, and the voices of the folk sitting at
their open windows, and the sound OF the
children playing in the street.
"Once more we hear the yearning notes
Of the ambitious violin player whose aspira-
tions SO far exceed his art, and tho biff, biff,
bang of many pianos, and the soaring and
the deep descending notes Of many singers.
"And you hear the soft str,lmming of
the gentle guitar, and the notes of the more
metallic mandolin. And occasionally you
hear some maternal voice calling:
Willie, you'll have to come in. now
"All familiar sounds, and not unfrendly
to those long accustomed to their annual
recurrence.
4Of those that are missing one ia the
sound Of the melancholy flute. I can re-
member we'll when no neighborhood sum
mer night symphony would have seemed
complete without a flute coming in now
and then, but As matter Of fact | haven't
heard flute among these summer
night sounds for years. think the flute
must have gone out Of fashion; if We are not
less sentimental than we were we are less
pensive and the flute was peculiarly
pensive instrument, one commonly played
in solitude.
Now, the fiddle is sympathetic, and it
NAV be sentimental, still in all its vail
ings. il has more or less Of vigor, and We
are likely to play the fiddle. not alone, but
with somebody, AS with some kind person
struggling faithfully to accompany us on
the piano, dropping whole bars and gallop-
ing wildly To keep up with us when we slip
a cog, or lingering with dazed bewilder-
ment over the keys IA we maunder, rapt,
on the strings Yes, We still hear on sum
mer nights the chromatic yearning OF the
fiddle, hut no longer now the flute.
"Nor do we hear in these days the notes
of the once every season familiar key bugle;
and the singularly sharp and frightfully
fiat, the alternately violently explosive
and choking effects produced by the anna
teur on that noble instrument are sounds
that | miss greatly. But | haven't heard
key bugle in my neighborhood for years.
and the same is true of that ripeiy mel
low instrument the French horn / don't
know when have heard an amateur play
ing on a French horn. The French horn
seems TO have gone, with the key buge,
to Join tho melancholy flute. A strange
company.
-Bnt, II we miss these we have now new
sounds to take their places, the chug, chug,
chug, of the hustling auto scurrying through
the block, and we hear now the music Of
the automatic piano players-of many Of
them, and the sounds OF many monographs,
all peculiarly modern.
If some of the old voices have gone. new
ones have come, and 80 the grand volume
is not decreased; it is greater now, II any
thing, than ever-the chorus of the myriad
voices of the summer night, to be heard at
this season in the city, when all the windows
are open"