{"id":"01KG8AKXSYDX9VTRRXTPZ3CP67","cid":"bafkreihszbb4ginnwlheudrjriuy6z2vbcqcrupuwuajb5hi5nyhfjlqxy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9929,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.842Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":9856,"text":"they themselves are to blame; for such people’s musical pipes are\r\ncracked, and grown rusted, that no more music can be breathed into\r\ntheir souls.”\r\n\r\n“No, Carlo; no music like yours, perhaps,” said Harry, with a laugh.\r\n\r\n“Ah! there’s the mistake. Though my organ is as full of melody, as a\r\nhive is of bees; yet no organ can make music in unmusical breasts; no\r\nmore than my native winds can, when they breathe upon a harp without\r\nchords.”\r\n\r\nNext day was a serene and delightful one; and in the evening when the\r\nvessel was just rippling along impelled by a gentle yet steady breeze,\r\nand the poor emigrants, relieved from their late sufferings, were\r\ngathered on deck; Carlo suddenly started up from his lazy reclinings;\r\nwent below, and, assisted by the emigrants, returned with his organ.\r\n\r\nNow, music is a holy thing, and its instruments, however humble, are to\r\nbe loved and revered. Whatever has made, or does make, or may make\r\nmusic, should be held sacred as the golden bridle-bit of the Shah of\r\nPersia’s horse, and the golden hammer, with which his hoofs are shod.\r\nMusical instruments should be like the silver tongs, with which the\r\nhigh-priests tended the Jewish altars—never to be touched by a hand\r\nprofane. Who would bruise the poorest reed of Pan, though plucked from\r\na beggar’s hedge, would insult the melodious god himself.\r\n\r\nAnd there is no humble thing with music in it, not a fife, not a\r\nnegro-fiddle, that is not to be reverenced as much as the grandest\r\narchitectural organ that ever rolled its flood-tide of harmony down a\r\ncathedral nave. For even a Jew’s-harp may be so played, as to awaken\r\nall the fairies that are in us, and make them dance in our souls, as on\r\na moon-lit sward of violets.\r\n\r\nBut what subtle power is this, residing in but a bit of steel, which\r\nmight have made a tenpenny nail, that so enters, without knocking, into\r\nour inmost beings, and shows us all hidden things?\r\n\r\nNot in a spirit of foolish speculation altogether, in no merely\r\ntranscendental mood, did the glorious Greek of old fancy the human soul\r\nto be essentially a harmony. And if we grant that theory of Paracelsus\r\nand Campanella, that every man has four souls within him; then can we\r\naccount for those banded sounds with silver links, those quartettes of\r\nmelody, that sometimes sit and sing within us, as if our souls were\r\nbaronial halls, and our music were made by the hoarest old harpers of\r\nWales.\r\n\r\nBut look! here is poor Carlo’s organ; and while the silent crowd\r\nsurrounds him, there he stands, looking mildly but inquiringly about\r\nhim; his right hand pulling and twitching the ivory knobs at one end of\r\nhis instrument.\r\n\r\nBehold the organ!\r\n\r\nSurely, if much virtue lurk in the old fiddles of Cremona, and if their\r\nmelody be in proportion to their antiquity, what divine ravishments may\r\nwe not anticipate from this venerable, embrowned old organ, which might\r\nalmost have played the Dead March in Saul, when King Saul himself was\r\nburied.\r\n\r\nA fine old organ! carved into fantastic old towers, and turrets, and\r\nbelfries; its architecture seems somewhat of the Gothic, monastic\r\norder; in front, it looks like the West-Front of York Minster.\r\n\r\nWhat sculptured arches, leading into mysterious intricacies!—what\r\nmullioned windows, that seem as if they must look into chapels flooded\r\nwith devotional sunsets!—what flying buttresses, and gable-ends, and\r\nniches with saints!—But stop! ’tis a Moorish iniquity; for here, as I\r\nlive, is a Saracenic arch; which, for aught I know, may lead into some\r\ninterior Alhambra.\r\n\r\nAy, it does; for as Carlo now turns his hand, I hear the gush of the\r\nFountain of Lions, as he plays some thronged Italian air—a mixed and\r\nliquid sea of sound, that dashes its spray in my face.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJSA78862MZ0NS5DXGF21","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKXSYZWEQVG8XFNEWMCWG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKXT6EZW3AD3DXNJ2NJ4R","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:20.286Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:33.349Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}