music in its voice than a tin kettle; but what jollier sound is
there on a late February morning than the splendid hubbub of a rookery when
the slovenly nests are being built in the naked and swaying branches of the
elms? Betsy Trotwood was angry with David Copperfield's father because he
called his house Blunderstone Rookery. "Rookery, indeed!" she said. It is
almost the only point of disagreement I have with that admirable woman. Not
to love a rookery is _prima facie_ evidence against you. I have heard of
men who have bought estates because of the rookery, and I have loved them
for their beautiful extravagance. I am sure I should have liked David
Copperfield's father from that solitary incident recorded of him. He was
not a very practical or business-like man, I fear; but people who love
rookeries rarely are. You cannot expect both the prose and the poetry of
life for your endowment.

How much the feeling created by sound depends upon the setting may be
illustrated by the bagpipes. The bagpipes in a London street is a thing for
ribald laughter, but the bagpipes in a Highland glen is a thing to stir the
blood, and make the mind thrill to memories of

Old, unhappy, far off things.
And battles long ago.

It is so even with the humble concertina. That instrument is to me the last
expression of musical depravity. It is the torture which Dante would
provide for me in the last circle of Hell. But the sound of a concertina on
a country road on a dark night is as cheerful a noise as I want to hear.
But just as Omar loved the sound of a _distant_ drum, so distance is an
essential part of the enchantment of my concertina.

And of all pleasant sounds what is there to excel the music of the hammer
and the anvil in the smithy at the entrance to the village? No wonder the
children love to stand at the open door and see the burning sparks that fly
and hear the bellows roar. I would stand at the open door myself if I had
the pluck, for I am as much a child as any one when the hammer and the
anvil are playing their primeval music. It is the oldest song of humanity
played with the most ancient instruments. Here we are at the very beginning
of our story--here we stand in the very dawn of things. What lineage so
noble as that of the smith? What task so ancient and so honourable? With
such tools the first smith smote music out of labour, and began the
conquest of things to the accompaniment of joyous sounds. In those sounds I
s