A Quaker Singer's Recollections (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III MUSIC'S GOLDEN TONGUE There is no truer truth obtainable By man, than comes of music. textit{Robert Browning. Desire to enter upon a musical career came to me, I am sure, through the influence of the music I heard in the Episcopal Church at Moorestown, where now and then I went with my father, who sang occasionally in the little choir. The majesty of the pealing organ, played by my grand-aunt Emma Stokes, the choir behind the green baize curtains of the organ loft, the dignity of Doctor Weld with his black gown and snowy sleeves, all so far removed from the simplicity of Friends' Meeting, wrought mightily upon my mind. Yet High Church practices were little known about Philadelphia, and I did not then dream of St. Mark's and my future participation in services which might have been Roman Catholic, for all the difference apparent to a casual observer. My uncle John Bispham had given me a zither, on which I had lessons from a German " professor," by occupation a saloon-keeper. I had also a few lessons on the guitar from a woman, and I learned to strum on the banjo from my pal Will Chamberlain, who had given me some notion of chords on the piano. His parents were not Quakers; not they and under their hospitable roof my youthful eyes and ears were opened to many things which the larger world smiles upon. My mother, I am sure, thought all music a wile of the Evil One, the stage a snare for every foot, old or young, and the combination, as in opera, something too appalling to contemplate. She had once been to an opera, and the ballet shocked her beyond expression Yet even as a boy I could not believe there was essential wrong in either music or the drama; the only wrong lay in their debasement, their unworthy presentation or immoderate and inconsiderate use. In this last respect I ...