I have also a delightful Malay poem which would make a much finer operatic subject or dramatic subject than the European _féeries_ modelled upon the Hindoo drama of Sakuntala, or, as my French translator writes it, _Sacountala_. I have an inexhaustible quarry of monstrous and diabolical inspiration.
I spend whole days in vocal efforts--vain ones--to imitate those delicious arabesques about the Name of Allah in the Muezzin's Song,--and do suddenly awake by night with a Voice in my ears, as of a Summons to Prayer. Bismillah!--enormous is God!
_Monograph upon the Music of the Witches' Sabbath._
_Dictionary of the Musical Instruments of all Nations._
By H. Ed. Krehbiel and Lafcadio Hearn. Seven Vols. in 8vo, with 100 chromolithographs and 2000 eau-fortes. Price $300 per vol. 24th edition.
_On the Howling Dervishes_, and on the melodies of the six other orders of Dervishes. With music.
_The Song of the Muezzin in All Moslem Countries._ From Western Morocco to the Chinese Sea. Nine hundred different Notations of the Chant--with an Appendix treating of the Chant in the Oases and in the Soudan, as affected by African influence. Price $8000.
_Dance-Music of the Ancient Occident_, 1700 Ex.
_Temple-Melodies of the Ancient and Modern World._ Vol. I, China. Vol. II, India. Vol III, Rome. Vol. IV, Greece. Vol. V, Egypt, etc.
DEAR KREHBIEL,--Please don't let my importunacy urge you to write when you have little time and leisure. I only want to hear from you when it gives you pleasure and kills time. Never mind if I take a temporary notion to write every day--you know I don't mean to be unreasonable.
Now, as I have your postal card I'll cease the publication of my imaginary musical library, and will reserve that exquisite torture for some future occasion when I shall think you have treated me horribly. Just so soon as this beastly weather changes I'll go to New York, and hope you'll be able--say in April--to give me a few days' loafing-time.
I'm afraid, however, I shall have to leave my Ideas behind me. I know I could never squeeze them under or over the Brooklyn Bridge. Furthermore, I'm afraid the Elevated R. R. cars might run over my Ideas and hurt them. In fact, 't is only in the vast swamps of the South, where the converse of the frogs is even as the roar of a thousand waters, that my Ideas have room to expand.