"Come!" laughed the Old Maid, "you are narrow-minded. Civilisation
has given us music. Surely you will admit that has been of help to
us?"

"My dear lady," replied the Minor Poet, "you speak of the one
accomplishment with which Civilisation has had little or nothing to
do, the one art that Nature has bestowed upon man in common with the
birds and insects, the one intellectual enjoyment we share with the
entire animal creation, excepting only the canines; and even the
howling of the dog--one cannot be sure--may be an honest, however
unsatisfactory, attempt towards a music of his own. I had a fox
terrier once who invariably howled in tune. Jubal hampered, not
helped us. He it was who stifled music with the curse of
professionalism; so that now, like shivering shop-boys paying gate-
money to watch games they cannot play, we sit mute in our stalls
listening to the paid performer. But for the musician, music might
have been universal. The human voice is still the finest instrument
that we possess. We have allowed it to rust, the better to hear
clever manipulators blow through tubes and twang wires. The musical
world might have been a literal expression. Civilisation has
contracted it to designate a coterie."

"By the way," said the Woman of the World, "talking of music, have
you heard that last symphony of Grieg's? It came in the last
parcel. I have been practising it."

"Oh! do let us hear it," urged the Old Maid. "I love Grieg."

The Woman of the World rose and opened the piano.