e--near
enough also, she would remark, to leave no stump, and so at once place
politics upon a new basis by taking the governing power away from the
gentlemen, God bless them!

LOUISE STOCKTON.

MUSIC IN AMERICA

England and America have long been classed among the unmusical countries
of the world, and for good reasons. Their history so far records the
names of no composers of a high rank; and although in both countries
there are plenty of amateurs and minor musicians who fully appreciate
the best there is in the art, yet the people as a whole are not
influenced by it in the same way as the Germans and the Italians, to
whose hungry souls music is as necessary as is oxygen to their lungs. If
we adopt the good old-fashioned classification of instrumental and vocal
pieces into "music for the feet," or dance music, "music for the ear,"
or drawing-room music, "and music for the head and heart," or classical
music, we are forced to admit that so far only the first of these
classes has found general favor with our masses. Waltzes, quick-steps,
galops, quadrilles, are the daily food of our people, and there are
thousands of pianos scattered throughout the country which are never
used for any other purpose than to play this dance music, which occupies
about the same place in relation to the higher forms of music as dancing
on the stage does to artistic acting. Next comes the somewhat more
elevated branch of drawing-room or _salon_ music, which in the cities
and towns is very largely cultivated. It is typified by the popular
"Maiden's Prayer," and also includes the more sensational of the French
and Italian opera melodies with all their vocal pyrotechnics, as well as
the pianoforte fantasias on these same melodies--in short, all music
written with a view to giving the performer an opportunity of displaying
facility of execution rather than genuine feeling.

It is only in our centres of culture, the largest of our cities, that
sufficient interest is taken in the highest products of musical genius
to call into life and to support respectable orchestras and choruses;
and even in these centres of culture there is no excess of devotion, as
is perhaps best shown by the great rarity of amateur string quartettes,
those most intellectual and most enjoyable of all musical clubs, whose
sphere is classical chamber music, the direct opposite in most respects
of the drawing-room music just spoken of. How different all this is
fr