The Life of the Grasshopper 



on marble tablets which the archaeologists 

 have recently exhumed. 



The venerable strains, the oldest in 

 musical records, have been heard in my time 

 in the ancient theatre at Orange, a ruin in 

 stone worthy of that ruin of sound. I was 

 not present at the performance, being kept 

 away by my habit of running to the west 

 whenever there are fireworks in the east. 

 One of my friends, a man gifted with a very 

 sensitive ear, went; and he said to me 

 afterwards : 



" There were probably ten thousand 

 people forming the audience in the enormous 

 amphitheatre. I very much doubt whether 

 one of them understood that music of an- 

 other age. As for me, I felt as if I were 

 listening to a blind man's plaintive ditty and 

 I looked round involuntarily for the dog 

 holding the cup." 



The barbarian, to turn the Greek master- 

 piece into a stupid wail ! Was it irreverence 

 on his part? No, but it was incapacity. His 

 ear, trained in accordance with other rules, 

 was unable to take pleasure in artless sounds 

 which had become strange and even disagree- 

 able owing to their great age. What my 

 friend lacked, what we all lack is the per- 



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