From time to time the noise ceased, to be succeeded by energetic disputations in the thin nasal and guttural tones of South China, themselves, I knew, graduated in pitch, as all Chinese talk requires to be in order to be understood. Making my way to the source of these sounds, I found four young Chinamen. One of them was engaged in an unabashed bathing of his lower limbs. Other two were squatting on the floor to enjoy the music of the fourth, who sat on a high packing-case, holding a book in his toes, and performing on an instrument something like a violin. From time to time one of the others would interrupt, criticising the executant, and the book would then be referred to with energy and something as much like excitement as one ever sees a Chinaman display. The musician would extract a few notes from the instrument, clearly in defence of his rendering. Then the tumult would die down while the wailing of the smitten strings went on again. Now it cannot be impossible to fathom the obscurities of Oriental music: and it is quite possible that they may, in the future, yield new harmonies and melodies as yet undreamed-of to the West; for the difference is mainly, if I understand aright what Orientals say of it, a difference of scale. No doubt the conventions are all different. I have often observed in India that music considered to possess a jovial character is a shrill wailing in slow time; whereas funereal music always sounds a lively air. Western civilisation finds no difficulty in comprehending the decorative art of India and the Far East, nor in highly appreciating it. May not Eastern music have gifts for us as yet undreamed-of? But of course painting has a much more direct appeal to the emotions than music, and it is not at all difficult to imagine--nay, it is hardly possible to doubt--that a new manner in painting will from time to time develop, arriving out of newly-invented implements and materials. Doubtless improved methods of reproduction will multiply the numbers of those who can enjoy the masterpieces of the new age and of the old, just as in music it will unquestionably be possible to repeat satisfactorily an indefinite number of times any sounds that have once existed. Neither will any of the arts permanently suffer by the mechanical improvements applied to them--though the first employment of the latter will doubtless often have results which will be, to the artist, rather terrible. CHAPTER X THE AGE OF ECONOMIES