cate and sympathetic kinds of human beings, it is
naught unless it is valued; but, being valued, it is a treasure beyond
price. Cold, glittering, and dumb, it stands among the tasteless
splendors with which the wealthy ignorant cumber their dreary abodes,--a
thing of ostentation merely,--as uninteresting as the women who surround
it, gorgeously apparelled, but without conversation, conscious of
defective parts of speech. "There is much music, excellent voice, in
that little organ," but there is no one there who can "make it speak."
They may "fret" the noble instrument; they "cannot play upon it."

But a fool and his nine-hundred-dollar piano are soon parted. The red
flag of the auctioneer announces its transfer to a drawing-room
frequented by persons capable of enjoying the refined pleasures. Bright
and joyous is the scene, about half past nine in the evening, when, by
turns, the ladies try over their newest pieces, or else listen with
intelligent pleasure to the performance of a master. Pleasant are the
informal family concerts in such a house, when one sister breaks down
under the difficulties of Thalberg, and yields the piano-stool to the
musical genius of the family, who takes up the note, and, dashing gayly
into the midst of "Egitto," forces a path through the wilderness, takes
the Red Sea like a heroine, bursts at length into the triumphal prayer,
and retires from the instrument as calm as a summer morning. On
occasions of ceremony, too, the piano has a part to perform, though a
humble one. Awkward pauses will occur in all but the best-regulated
parties, and people will get together, in the best houses, who quench
and neutralize one another. It is the piano that fills those pauses, and
gives a welcome respite to the toil of forcing conversation. How could
"society" go on without the occasional interposition of the piano? One
hundred and sixty years ago, in those days beloved and vaunted by
Thackeray, when Louis XIV. was king of France, and Anne queen of
England, society danced, tattled, and gambled. Cards have receded as the
piano has advanced in importance.

From such a drawing-room as this, after a stay of some years, the piano
may pass into a boarding-school, and thence into the sitting-room of a
family who have pinched for two years to buy it. "It must have been,"
says Henry Ward Beecher, "about the year 1820, in old Litchfield,
Connecticut, upon waking one fine morning, that we heard music in the
parlor, and