The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1837Various
History
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1837
Various
Periodicals
Mr. Tumbler was not only a lover of music, but was likewise a
professor of the divine art. During the delightful summer evenings,
he would sit for hours on some cellar-door, producing strains from
a jews-harp, whose melody floated enchantingly upon the air, adding
still more to the witchery of the time, and causing a secret wish
to arise, that it might be evening all the year round. There is a
sympathy in music not to be withstood; and when a particular chord
is struck, if it find a unison in human feeling, the sternest heart
must melt at its thrill. Upon a particular moonlight night, our hero
established himself upon a door-sill, and taking out his instrument,
commenced the beautiful and pathetic ballad of 'Lord Lovell and
Lady Nancy.' For a while he played on with no more interest than a
performer usually exhibits in the execution of a piece. At length,
however, he began to revert to the sorrows of the Lady Nancy, and the
tears were seen stealing, one by one, down his countenance. Thought
begat thought, and sympathy begat sympathy, until Mr. Tumbler,
overpowered by his feelings, took the jews-harp from his mouth, and
commenced sobbing like a child. For a full half hour he continued
to weep, and might have kept on for an hour longer, had not a
hard-hearted servant girl emptied a bucket of ancient soap-suds upon
him, from the third-story window. This libation at once cooled his
sorrows. Shaking the unpleasing liquid from his garments, he crossed
over to the market-house, in order to seek that repose which always
waits upon innocence and self-approbation.
We come now to one of the darkest passages of our hero's life; an
event which we chronicle with a tear; and which nothing but an
imperative sense of duty, as faithful biographers, would compel us
to narrate. There breathes not the man, no matter where you may seek
him, whose career has been, in every instance, one of purity, who can
look back upon his past life, without remembering _some_ action that
brings a feeling of remorse, and who can declare upon his honor that
he has done nothing but what has been perfectly justifiable in the
eyes of God and his fellow-men. Why then should it be expected that
Mr. Tumbler should prove an exception to all mankind? It is not to
be--it ought not to be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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