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A short story by Elizabeth Rundle Charles |
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What Makes Things Musical? |
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Title: What Makes Things Musical? Author: Elizabeth Rundle Charles [More Titles by Charles] WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "The Sun!" said the Forest. "In the night I am still and voiceless. A weight of silence lies upon my heart. If you pass through me, the sound of your own footstep echoes fearfully, like the foot-fall of a ghost. If you speak to break the spell, the silence closes in on your words, like the ocean on a pebble you throw into it. The wind sighs far off among the branches, as if he were hushing his breath to listen. If a little bird chirps uneasily in its nest, it is silenced before you can find out whence the sound came. But the dawn breaks. Before a gray streak can be seen, my trees feel it, and quiver through every old trunk and tiny twig with joy; my birds feel it, and stir dreamily in their nests, as if they were just murmuring to each other, 'How comfortable we are!' Then the wind awakes, and tunes my trees for the concert, striking his hand across one and another, until all their varied harmonies are astir; whilst the soft, liquid rustlings of my oaks and beeches make the rich treble to the deep, plaintive tones of my pines. Then my early birds awake one by one, and answer each other in sweet responses, until the SUN rises, and the whole joyous chorus bursts into song to the organ and flute accompaniments of my evergreens and summer leaves; and in the pauses countless happy insects chirp, and buzz, and whirl with contented murmuring among my ferns and flower-bells. The SUN makes me musical," said the Forest. * * * * * WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "Storms!" said the Sea. "In calm weather I lie still and sleep, or, now and then, say a few quiet words to the beaches I ripple on, or the boats which glide through my waters. But in the tempest you learn what my voice is, when all my slumbering powers awake, and I thunder through the caverns, and rush with all my battle-music on the rocks; whilst, between the grand artillery of my breakers, the wind peals its wild trumpet-peals, and the waters rush back to my breast from the cliffs they have scaled, in torrents and cascades, like the voices of a thousand rivers. My music is battle-music. STORMS make me musical," said the Sea. * * * * * WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "Action!" said the Stream. "I lay still in my mountain-cradle for a long while. It is very silent up there. Occasionally the shadow of an eagle swept across me with a wild cry; but generally, from morning till night, I knew no change save the shadows of my rocky cradle, which went round steadily with the sun; and the shadows of the clouds, which glided across me, without my ever knowing whence or whither. But the rocks and clouds are very silent. The singing-birds did not venture so high; and the insects had nothing to tempt them near me, because no honeyed flower-bells bent over me there--nothing but little mosses and gray lichens, and these, though very lovely, are quiet creatures, and make no stir. I used to find it monotonous sometimes, and longed to have power to wake the hills; and I should have found it more so, had I not felt I was growing, and should flow forth to bless the fields by-and-by. Every drop that fell into my rocky basin I welcomed; and then the spring rains came, and all my rocks sent me down little rills on every side, and the snows melted into my cup; and, at last, I rose beyond the rim of my dwelling, and was free. Then I danced down over the hills, and sang as I went, till all the lonely places were glad with my voice; and I tinkled over the stones like bells, and crept among my cresses like fairy flutes, and dashed over the rocks and plunged into the pools with all my endless harmonies. ACTION makes me musical," said the Stream. * * * * * WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "Suffering!" said the Harp-strings. "We were dull lumps of silver and copper ore in the mines; and no silence on the living, sunny earth is like the blank of voiceless ages in those dead and sunless depths. But, since then, we have passed through many fires. The hidden earth-fires underneath the mountains first moulded us, millenniums since, to ore; and then, in these last years, human hands have finished the training which makes us what we are. We have been smelted in furnaces heated seven times, till all our dross was gone; and then we have been drawn out on the rack, and hammered and fused, and, at last, stretched on these wooden frames, and drawn tighter and tighter, until we wonder at ourselves, and at the gentle hand which strikes such rich and wondrous chords and melodies from us--from us, who were once silent lumps of ore in the silent mines. Fires and blows have done it for us. SUFFERING has made us musical," said the Harp-strings. * * * * * WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "Union!" said the Rocks. "What could be less musical than we, as we rose in bare crags from the hill-tops, or lay strewn about in huge isolated boulders in the valleys? The trees which sprang from our crevices had each its voice; the forests which clothed our sides had all these voices blended in richest harmonies when the wind touched them; the streams which gushed from our stony hearts sang joyous carols to us all day and all night long; the grasses and wild-flowers which clasped their tiny fingers round us had each some sweet murmur of delight as the breezes played with them; but we, who ever thought there was music in us? Yet now a human hand has gathered us from moor and mountain and lonely fell, and side by side we lie and give out music to the hand that strikes us. Thus we, who had lain for centuries unconscious that there was a note of music in our hearts, answer one another in melodious tones, and combine in rich chords, just because we have been brought together. UNION makes us musical," said the Rocks. * * * * * WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "Life!" said the Oak-beam in the good ship. "I know it by its loss. Once I quivered in the forest at the touch of every breeze. Every living leaf of mine had melody, and all together made a stream of many-voiced music; whilst around me were countless living trees like myself, who woke at every dawn to a chorus in the morning breeze. But since the axe was laid at our roots, all the music has gone from our branches. We are useful still, they say, in the gallant ship, and our country mentions us with honour even in death; but the music has gone from us with life for ever, and we can only groan and creak in the storms. LIFE made us musical," said the Oak-beam. * * * * * WHAT MAKES CREATURES MUSICAL? "Joy!" laughed the Children, and their happy laughter pealed through the sweet fresh air as they bounded over the fields, as if it had caught the most musical tones of everything musical in nature--the ripple of waves, the tinkling of brooks, the morning songs of birds. "JOY makes creatures musical," said the Children. * * * * * WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL? "Love!" said the little Thrush, as he warbled to his mate on the spring morning; and the Mother, as she sang soft lullabies to her babe. And all the Creatures said-- "Amen! LOVE makes us musical. In Storms and Sunshine, Suffering and Joy, Action, Union, Life, LOVE is the music at the heart of all. LOVE makes us musical," said all the Creatures. And from the multitude before the throne, who, through fires of Tribulation and Storms of conflict, had learned the new song, and from depths of Darkness and the silence of Isolation had been brought together in the Light of Life to sing it, floated down a soft "Amen, for GOD is LOVE." 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