Books › The story of the violin, 1904 › scan 30
Scan 30
The story of the violin, 1904
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Prologue.
3The Violin—what a wonderful thing a violin is! Muse over it—its tone, its form, its history, and its position in the world of art to-day—and you stand facing a miracle. Something miraculous, mysterious—call it what you will, divine purpose, divine power—seems to lie behind this frail little handiwork of man.
5Once, in its crude primeval form, in the dim ages of antiquity, it was perhaps the most despised and neglected of instruments; then, after centuries of slow development, which seemed like the groping through darkness towards light, it burst upon the world two or three hundred years ago in a perfection which human wit has never since been able to improve upon.
7It was the robin's song in March, ushering in the new spring; the lovely first-fruit of a new age, a new dispensation, a new spirit on the earth— not only the spirit of modern musical art, but the spirit of a more enlightened, spiritualised humanity, of greater charity and general brotherhood.
9With gospel-truth rapidity the little miracle of form and sound has penetrated since to all quarters of the
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