The practice of
thoughtlessness was condemned as a thing entirely apart from the
practitioner, and as a tendency needing correction. Inwardly, I know he
swore; outwardly, he was as serene as though nothing untoward had
happened to him. It was then that I came to admire Carson. Before that
he had my affectionate regard in fullest measure, but now admiration
for his deeper qualities set in, and it has in no sense diminished as
time has passed. Once, and once only, have I known him to depart from
his philosophical demeanor, and that one departure was, I think,
justified by the situation, since it was the culminating point of a
series of aggravations, to fail to yield to which would have required a
more than human strength.
The incident to which I refer was in connection with a fine organ, which
at large expense Carson had had built in his house, for, like all
philosophers, Carson has a great fondness for music, and is himself a
musician of no mean capacity. I have known him to sit down under a
parlor-lamp and read over the score of the "Meistersinger" just as
easily as you or I would peruse one of the lighter novels of the day.
This was one of his refuges. When his spirit was subjected to an extreme
tension he relieved his soul by flying to the composers; to use his own
very bad joke, when he was in need of composure he sought out the
"composures." As time progressed, however, and the petty annoyances grew
more numerous, the merely intellectual pleasure of the writings of
Wagner and Handel and Mozart possibly failed to suffice, and an organ
was contracted for.
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