“How it rushes through the veins like electric fire! How it penetrates straight to the soul! In soft, plaintive minor tones the _adagio_ opens with a slow, rhythmical movement: it is a sighing and longing of unsatisfied aspirations; a craving for undiscovered happiness; the lover’s yearning for the object of his affection; the expression of mourning for lost joys, for happy days gone forever: then abruptly changing to a major key the tones get faster and more agitated; and from the whirlpool of harmony the melody gradually detaches itself, alternately drowned in the foam of over-breaking waves, to reappear floating on the surface with undulating motion—collecting as it were fresh power for a renewed burst of fury. But quickly as the storm came it is gone again, and the music relapses into the melancholy yearnings of heretofore.” These two extremes of fiercest passion and plaintive wailing characterize the nature of the Hungarian, of whom it is said that, “weeping, the Hungarian makes merry.” Under the influence of Tzigane music a Hungarian is capable of flinging about his money with the most reckless extravagance—fifty, a hundred, a thousand florins and more being often given for the performance of a single melody. Sometimes a gentleman will stick a large bank-note behind his ear, while the Tzigane proceeds to play his favorite tune, drawing nearer and nearer till he is almost touching; pouring the melody straight into the upturned ear of the enraptured auditor; dropping out the notes as though the music were some exquisitely flavored liquid flattering the palate of this superrefined _gourmet_, who, with half-closed eyes expressive of perfect beatitude, entirely abandons himself to the delirious ecstasy. Not only do the people at rustic gatherings dance to the strains of these brown bohemians, but in no real Hungarian ball-room would other music be tolerated, and the Austrian military bands, so much prized elsewhere, are here at a discount and little appreciated. [Illustration: GYPSY MUSICIANS.] Of course the gypsy bands in large towns are not composed of the ragged, unkempt individuals who haunt the village pothouses or the lonely _csardas_[65] on the _puszta_. Their constant intercourse with higher circles has given them a certain degree of polish, and they mostly appear in Hungarian costume; but intrinsically they are ever the same as their more vagabond brethren, and their eye never loses the semi-savage glitter reminding one of a half-tamed animal.