The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 - Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Mary Lamb;Charles Lamb
page 64 of 696 (09%)
page 64 of 696 (09%)
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A CHAPTER ON EARS I have no ear.-- Mistake me not, reader,--nor imagine that I am by nature destitute of those exterior twin appendages, hanging ornaments, and (architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the human capital. Better my mother had never borne me.--I am, I think, rather delicately than copiously provided with those conduits; and I feel no disposition to envy the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her exactness, in those ingenious labyrinthine inlets--those indispensable side-intelligencers. Neither have I incurred, or done any thing to incur, with Defoe, that hideous disfigurement, which constrained him to draw upon assurance--to feel "quite unabashed," and at ease upon that article. I was never, I thank my stars, in the pillory; nor, if I read them aright, is it within the compass of my destiny, that I ever should be. When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will understand me to mean--_for music_.--To say that this heart never melted at the concourse of sweet sounds, would be a foul self-libel.--"_Water parted from the sea_" never fails to move it strangely. So does "_In Infancy_." But they were used to be sung at her harpsichord (the old-fashioned instrument in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman--the gentlest, sure, that ever merited the appellation--the sweetest--why should I hesitate to name Mrs. S----, once the blooming Fanny Weatheral of the Temple--who had power to thrill the soul of Elia, |
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