surd! The idea of men and women shouting away in that mad style about what they are going to do or what they have done, and talking to each other by bawling in that heathenish fashion! There certainly is nothing more monstrous than an opera! Men poisoning themselves and singing, stabbing themselves and singing, going to battle or to execution singing, eating, drinking, getting married or getting killed, singing! It's highly amusing, but precious nonsense!"
"But," you answer, hesitatingly, and beginning to perceive some element of the ludicrous in the performance which just now awakened your rapture, "but what a glorious voice Madame ——— has! Is it not perfect melody? Such power and such sweetness combined! Don't you like her voice?"
"Oh! I dare say her voice is good enough; it's not particularly disagreeable; it's very so-so; but there are no great singers now-a-days."
Startled by such a denouncing assertion, you venture to remark, "Perhaps you do not care for music; perhaps you have no—no—no ear."
"No ear? Why, I suppose I can hear all that din (meaning a magnificent chorus) as plainly as anybody else."
Of course Quenchum has no ear; none of the family of Nil Admirantem have musical ears or artistic eyes; if they had, they could not be scions of that pulseless race.
