Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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They learnt it from some one, and he or she learnt it from somebody else, and so on till the original source of the melody is lost in the deep “backward abyss of time.”

When we consider with how easy a transition we may pass from the accents of speaking to diatonic sounds, when we observe how early children adopt the language of their amusements to measure and melody, however rude—​when we consider how early and universally these practices take place, there is no avoiding the conclusion that the idea of music is co-natural with man, and implied in the original principles of his constitution.

The principles on which it is founded, and the rules by which it is conducted, constitute a science.

The same maxims when applied to practice form an art; hence its first and most capital diversion is into speculative and practical music.

Go where you will, and you will see how wonderfully music and song are blended with the most laborious occupations of humble life, not only as the natural breathing of cheery thoughts and gladdening hopes, faiths, and feelings, but as giving nerve, measure, and harmony to the physical forces of men bending to the most arduous toil.