C C# Db D D# Eb E, etc. 1 25/24 27/24 8/9 75/64 6/5 5/4, etc.
each note being increased by one twenty-fourth of itself, or in absolute vibrations--
C C# Db D D# Eb E, etc. 261 271 271 293 305 303 326, etc.
This is the enharmonic scale, having twenty-one notes. The chromatic has eleven, and the name--it may be remarked in passing--is from the Greek word for "color" ([Greek: chrôma]) because the old composers wrote these notes in colors, and had them so printed. Not a bad idea, surely: many a learner on the piano would be overjoyed to see all the ugly flats and sharps on the staff in brilliant holiday dress.
There is no reason at this day, when science in all fields is making such progress, why the ordinary music-teacher should have so limited a knowledge of his subject. He should be able to explain the fundamental principles of the different scales upon the theory of vibration, and to so educate the apprehension of his pupils that they will not be content with the imperfect catechisms of the music-books in vogue. And with the adoption of a rational system of writing music, which will reduce the time and labor of learning it to one half, there will be time for the niceties of a science of such vast importance to the culture--and, indirectly, to the moral progress--of the world.
"But," I said eagerly, "you do not deny that slavery was a curse to the country--to Southerners most of all?"
"My dear fellow," said Captain S----, knocking off the ashes from his cigar, "don't go into that! We were talking about negroes, not about slavery. I suppose," he added meditatively, "there are not many men in the country who have faced more of the negro race than those of us who spent some part of our term of service in the Freedmen's Bureau. Imagine settling disputes from morning till night between negroes and between negroes and whites! If you abolitionists--as you called yourselves before the emancipation--want to have some of the romance and sentiment of negroism dissolved, live amongst them for a time."
"Yes, but the negroes there are a better class than in the States farther South and more remote from cities."
"Well, more intelligent. To see the deepest ignorance you have to go to the cotton-plantations, miles in extent, where men, women and children have been born and have died as cotton-pickers. Of course I am not now speaking of the freedmen as they are, for it is ten years since I was on duty in G----, Mississippi, where all the horrors of freedom were first revealed to the poor creatures."