excerpt from 'A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the Year 1741 to 1770' pp. 43-44 (272 words)
excerpt from 'A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the Year 1741 to 1770' pp. 43-44 (272 words)
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I am sorry we have no music to heighten your idea of our amusements; but a sorrowful truth it is, that I have no sort of ear, nor any kind of genius that way. This is however a truth which I do not unnecessarily confess to all the word [world?]; and indeed I think it too unsociable a thing to dissent from any rational entertainment that the greater part of the world approves, and are fond of, so that I am really grown to love music out of deference to the better taste of others. That you may not however think me absolutely incapable of being moved with concord of sweet sounds, and therefore break off all correspondence with me, for fear I should engage you in treasons, plots, and all the dreadful things that Shakespeare is pleased to enumerate, I will own the having been highly delighted with several songs in Sampson, and especially with the choruses. I heard that oratorio performed this winter in one of the College Halls, and I believe to the full as finely as it ever was in town: and having never heard any oratorio before, I was extremely struck with such a kind of harmony as seems the only language adapted to devotion. I really cannot help thinking this kind of entertainment must necessarily have some effect in correcting or moderating at least the levity of the age; and let an audience be ever so thoughtless, they can scarcely come away, I should think, without being the better for an evening so spent. I heartily wish you had been with me when I heard it. |
| appears in search results as | excerpt from 'A Series of Letters between Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and Miss Catherine Talbot, from the Year 1741 to 1770' pp. 43-44 (272 words) |
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