We
have heard and seen her grandfather play the "Chant du Triste Commensal"
to crowded concert-rooms, applauded to the echo by men and women long
dead and buried and forgotten!
Now, I believe such reminiscences to form part of the sub-consciousness
of others, as well as Mary's and mine, and that by perseverance in
self-research many will succeed in reaching them--perhaps even more
easily and completely than we have done.
It is something like listening for the overtones of a musical note; we
do not hear them at first, though they are there, clamoring for
recognition; and when at last we hear them, we wonder at our former
obtuseness, so distinct are they.
Let a man with an average ear, however uncultivated, strike the C low
down on a good piano-forte, keeping his foot on the loud pedal. At first
he will hear nothing but the rich fundamental note C.
But let him become _expectant_ of certain other notes; for instance, of
the C in the octave immediately above, then the G immediately above
that, then the E higher still; he will hear them all in time as clearly
as the note originally struck; and, finally, a shrill little ghostly and
quite importunate B flat in the treble will pulsate so loudly in his ear
that he will never cease to hear it whenever that low C is sounded.
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