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Victor Lazzarini

Computer Music
Instruments
Foundations, Design and Development
Computer Music Instruments
Victor Lazzarini

Computer Music Instruments

Foundations, Design and Development

13
Victor Lazzarini
Department of Music
Maynooth University­
Maynooth
Ireland

ISBN 978-3-319-63503-3 ISBN 978-3-319-63504-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63504-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953821

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or
information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to John ffitch,
Mathematician, Computer Scientist and
Musician.
Foreword

I met Victor Lazzarini for the first time in May 2004 in Karlsruhe, during the sec-
ond International Linux Audio Conference. I was there to present the Faust audio
programming language and Victor was giving a talk on developing spectral signal
processing applications. What struck me at the outset was Victor’s many talents.
Victor is not only a highly experienced composer and educator, and Professor of
Music and Dean of Arts, Celtic Studies and Philosophy at Maynooth University. He
is also a leading researcher in the field of sound synthesis and audio programming
languages, and a core developer of the Csound programming language.
It took us some time to transform our highly interesting informal discussions
during international conferences into a real collaboration. But in June 2013 Victor
suggested we could embed the Faust compiler into the future Csound 6 release in
order to be able to interleave Faust and Csound programs. We therefore decided to
collaborate to develop a set of opcodes to compile, run and control Faust code di-
rectly from Csound (a detailed description of these opcodes can be found in Chapter
2). The resulting Csound 6 opcodes were released in 2014.
Interestingly, it turns out that interleaving programming languages are at the heart
of Computer Music Instruments. Indeed, the first part of the book introduces the
foundations, from audio signals to programming environments, of the three partic-
ular programming languages (Python, Csound and Faust) that are used throughout
the book.
The second part of the book is dedicated to sound synthesis and signal processing
methods. The techniques presented range from source-filter models to frequency-
domain techniques, via granular methods, as well as feedback and adaptive systems.
Many practical examples with code are provided in Python, Csound and Faust.
The last part of the book focuses on communication protocols, interactions, and
computer music platforms. Mobile phones, embedded systems, and Web platforms
are covered. The text is completed by two appendices. The first provides support to
understand the mathematical notions used in the book. The second provides addi-
tional code examples.
I can strongly recommend this comprehensive book. The style is clear and easy to
follow. The examples are excellent. Readers of different levels of expertise will gain

vii
viii Foreword

benefit from it. The great talent of Victor Lazzarini is to provide a book that is in-
teresting from multiple perspectives: computer science, signal processing, software
development and, of course, sound art and music!

Lyon, December 2016 Yann Orlarey

Preface

If we consider the appearance of Max Mathews’ first direct digital synthesis pro-
gram for the IBM 704 mainframe, MUSIC I, as marking the year zero of computer
music, then the field is about to reach its sixtieth anniversary in 2018. Throughout
these years, amazing developments in software and hardware technology made the
production of (digital) electronic music a common feature of today’s music. For
the first few decades, access to computers for sound creation was limited to only a
few lucky individuals. With the popularisation of microcomputers, a revolution was
initiated, allowing a much a wider host of practitioners to avail themselves of these
wonderful devices. This has continued today and I expect it will extend well into the
future, as new possibilities emerge for music, sound art, sound design, and related
activities. The personal computing tools we have at hand today, which have various
forms, sizes, and capabilities, are incredibly powerful platforms for the development
and manipulation of new sound-making objects. This book is dedicated to the study
of these computer instruments from the ground up.
The text is organised into three parts, covering three aspects of the topic: foun-
dations; instrument development from the perspective of signal processing; and the
design of applications on existing computer music platforms. The first chapter, in
Part I, explores basic concepts relating to audio signals in and out of the computer.
It provides a gentle introduction to some key principles that will be used throughout
the book, with a touch of mathematics and plenty of illustrative examples. This is
followed by an introduction to the programming tools that will be used in the fol-
lowing two parts of the book, Python, Csound, and Faust. These three languages
were judiciously chosen to cover a wide variety of applications, which range from
demonstrating signal-processing algorithms to implementing full applications. An-
other important feature of these three environments is that they can be nicely inter-
leaved, from a higher to a lower level, and from an application-development to a
signal-processing function. This is demonstrated by a full example at the end of the
chapter.
The second part of the book is fully devoted to exploring ways of making sound
with a computer, the signal-processing design for instruments. It includes some clas-
sic approaches, such as source-filter models, clever ways of manipulating mathe-

ix
x Preface

matical formulae, newer approaches to feedback and adaptive techniques, and the
methods of granular synthesis. Part II is complemented by a thorough examination
of the principles of frequency-domain analysis-synthesis principles. Although these
chapters tend to make continued use of mathematical expressions, the discussion
also employs graphical plots and programming examples to complete the explo-
ration of each technique. This three-pronged approach is aimed at providing a full
perspective and a thorough examination of these sound-generation algorithms.
Finally, in the third part, we look at some complementary aspects of instrument
design: interaction tools and development platforms. Chapter 8 explores various
means of communication with sound synthesis programs, with examples presented
in the three target programming environments. We also examine graphical user in-
terfaces and the principles of custom hardware for sound control. The final chapter
in the book then discusses the various platforms for the development and perfor-
mance of computer instruments.
This book is designed for readers of different levels of expertise, from musicians
to sound artists, researchers, software developers, and computer scientists. More ex-
perienced users may want to skip some of the introductory points in Part I, depend-
ing on their background. Readers who are unsure about the mathematical language
used can avail themselves of Appendix A where all concepts applied in the book
are thoroughly explained (assuming just a basic understanding of arithmetics). All
important code that is not completely provided in the main text of the book appears
fully in Appendix B and is referenced in the relevant chapters.
I hope that this book will prove to be a useful reference for computer music prac-
titioners on the topic of instrument development. It aims to provide a solid founda-
tion for further research, development, music-making, and sound design. Readers
are encouraged to experiment with the examples and programs presented here as
they develop new perspectives in their practice of sound and music computing.

Maynooth, December 2016 Victor Lazzarini

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the help and encouragement of many of my colleagues

at the university and in the computer music community. In particular, I would like
to thank some of my close allies in the Csound brotherhood, Steven Yi, Øyvind
Brandtsegg, Joachim Heintz, Tarmo Johannes, Rory Walsh, Iain McCurdy, Richard
Boulanger and Michael Gogins, from whom I have learned a lot throughout these
many years of interaction. In addition, I wish to acknowledge the work of François
Pinot in designing such a great Python interface to the Csound API, ctcsound, a
much better fit to the system than the automatically-generated wrappers we used to
have.
I would also like to mention my colleagues Joe Timoney and Tom Lysaght, at
the Computer Science Department, and Rudi Villing, at the Electronic Engineering
Department, in Maynooth, to whom I am very thankful for their collaboration and
support. Likewise, it is important to mention my co-researchers in the Ubiquitous
Music (ubimus) group, Damián Keller, Nuno Otero and others, with whom I have
had numerous exchanges that cemented many ideas underpinning my work in this
field.
Some of the original research that led to parts of this book was also conducted in
collaboration with colleagues from Aalto University in Finland, and I would like to
express my gratitude to Jari Kleimola, Jussi Pekkonen, and Vesa Välimäki for their
part in this work. Thanks should also go to the Faust development team at GRAME,
led by Stéphane Letz and Yann Orlarey (who very kindly contributed a foreword to
this book). Theirs is a fantastic piece of work, providing such a wonderful software
system for computer music.
This book would not exist without the support, help, and understanding of my
family, who many times had to endure my (mental, if not physical) disappearance
for hours at weekends and evenings, as I battled with typesetting, programming, and
explaining my ideas more clearly. To them, Alice, my wife, and our children Danny,
Ellie, and Chris, I would like to make a special dedication.
I am very thankful to my editor at Springer, Ronan Nugent, for facilitating the
development of this and other projects, and for the very efficient manner in which

xi
xii Acknowledgements

these have been brought to fruition. The peace of mind provided by a well-structured
process allows for a much more enjoyable writing experience.
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to John ffitch, to whom this book is dedicated.
John has been a very influential figure in the computer music community and has
given us a huge contribution in terms of free software, expertise, and guidance. This
is just a small token of our gratitude for his generosity and support.
Contents

Part I Foundations

1 Audio and Music Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.1 Audio Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.1 Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.2 Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.3 Waveform shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.4 Breaking waveforms down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 Musical Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.1 Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.2 Spectral types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3 Signals in and out of the Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3.1 Digital signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

2 Music Programming Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2.1 Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.1.1 Control of flow and loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.1.2 Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1.3 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.1.4 Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1.5 Modules and libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.2 Csound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2.1 The language: instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.2 Variables and types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.3 The API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3 Faust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3.1 Stream operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.2 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.3 Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.4 Compilation and Csound integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

xiii
xiv Contents

2.4 Programming Environment and Language Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2.4.1 The application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.4.2 Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.4.3 Application code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Part II Synthesis and Processing

3 Source-Filter Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.1 Sound Spectra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.2 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2.1 Periodic signal generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2.2 Broadband noise and distributed spectra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.3 Dynamic Parameter Shaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.3.1 Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.3.2 Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.4 Spectral Modification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.4.1 Filter types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.4.2 IIR versus FIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.4.3 Multiple filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.5 Instrument Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.5.1 Multiple detuned sources to resonant filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.5.2 Synthetic vocals using filter banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

4 Closed-Form Summation Formulae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

4.1 Band-Limited Pulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.2 Generalised Summation Formulae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4.3 Frequency and Phase Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4 Asymmetrical PM synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
4.5 Phase-Aligned Formant Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
4.6 Split-Sideband Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.7 Modified FM Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
4.7.1 Extended ModFM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.8 Wave-Shaping Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.8.1 Polynomial transfer functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4.8.2 Hyperbolic tangent wave shaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.9 Phase Distortion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.9.1 Vector phase shaping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
4.10 Instrument Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.10.1 Phase modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.10.2 The ModFM vocoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.10.3 Resonant synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
4.11 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Contents xv

5 Feedback and Adaptive Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

5.1 Delay Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.1.1 Waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
5.2 Variable Delays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.2.1 Vibrato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.2.2 Adaptive FM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
5.2.3 Self-modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5.2.4 Asymmetrical methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5.2.5 Adaptive ModFM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
5.3 Heterodyning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.3.1 Adaptive PD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
5.3.2 Adaptive SpSB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
5.4 Feedback Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
5.4.1 Feedback AM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
5.4.2 Periodic time-varying filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.4.3 Feedback FM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
5.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

6 Granular Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

6.1 Grains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
6.2 Grain Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
6.2.1 Grain streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
6.2.2 Grain clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
6.2.3 Sampled-sound sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
6.2.4 Using Python to generate grain data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
6.3 Grain Generators in Csound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
6.3.1 Syncgrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
6.3.2 FOF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
6.3.3 Partikkel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
6.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

7 Frequency-Domain Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

7.1 Frequency-Domain Analysis and Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.1.1 The Fourier transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.1.2 The discrete Fourier transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
7.1.3 The fast Fourier transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
7.1.4 Convolution reverb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
7.2 Time-Varying Spectral Analysis and Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
7.2.1 Processing spectral data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
7.2.2 Spectral envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
7.2.3 Instantaneous frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
7.2.4 Time scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
7.3 Real-Time Spectral Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
7.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
xvi Contents

Part III Application Development

8 Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
8.1 Communication Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
8.1.1 The MIDI protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
8.1.2 The OSC protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
8.1.3 Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
8.2 User Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
8.2.1 WIMP paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
8.2.2 Beyond WIMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.2.3 Custom hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
8.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

9 Computer Music Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

9.1 Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
9.2 Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
9.3 Web Browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
9.4 DIY Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
9.4.1 The Internet of Musical Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Appendices

A Signal Processing Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

A.1 Fundamental Concepts and Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
A.1.1 Vector and matrix operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
A.1.2 Sum and product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
A.1.3 Polynomials and functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
A.2 Trigonometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
A.2.1 Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
A.3 Numeric Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
A.4 Complex Polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
A.5 Differentiation and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

B Application Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

B.1 Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
B.2 Vocal Quartet Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
B.3 Closed-Form Summation Formulae User-Defined Opcodes . . . . . . . . 332
B.4 Pylab Waveform and Spectrum Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
B.5 FOF Vowel Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
B.6 Convolution Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
B.7 Spectral Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
B.8 Cross-synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
B.9 Pitch Shifting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
B.10 Time Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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Japan, trails her purple skirts over the trellis under which the
rickshaws go to their abode. The corn-bottles have come up exactly
where I asked them to, scattered thick among the leaves of the
chrysanthemums which are already tall and bushy. They are exactly
the right blue in exactly the right green and they give a little air, not
at all a disagreeable little air, of discernment and sophistication to
their corner of the garden. I would like to venture to say that they
resemble blue stars in a green sky, if I were sure of offending
nobody’s sense of humour. It is natural enough to observe this and
pass on, but why should one find a subtle pleasure in the
comparison, and linger over it? It must be the same throb of joyful
activity with which the evolved human intelligence first detected a
likeness between any two of the phenomena about it, and triumphed
in the perception, attracted to wisdom and stirred to art. Those
indeed were days to live in, when everything was mysteriously to
copy and inherit and nothing was exploited, explained, laid bare,
when the great sweet thoughts were all to think and heroism had
not yet received its molecular analysis, and babies equipped with an
instinctive perception of the fundamental weakness of socialistic
communism were neither born nor thought of. These seem violent
reflections to make in a garden, and they may well be obscured
behind the long bed of poppies and field-daisies and more bluets
that runs along the side of the house under the windows that
support the roses. If you can tell me for what primitive reason
poppies and field-daisies and corn-flowers go well together I had
rather you didn’t.
I have clumps and clumps of hollyhocks, and a balustrade of them,
pink and white ones, on each side of the steps that run down from
the verandah in front of the drawing-room door. It is an
unsophisticated thing, the single hollyhock, like a bashful school
child in a sun-bonnet. Do what you will you cannot make it feel at
home among the beaux and belles of high life in the garden; it never
looks really happy except just inside a cottage paling with a bunch of
rhubarb on one side and a tangle of “old man” on the other. Still it is
a good and grateful flower in whatever station it pleases the sun to
call it. It gets along on the merest necessities of life when times are
bad and water scarce, and flowers, with anything like a chance,
twice in the season. One cannot, after all, encourage class feeling in
the garden; there every one must stand on his own roots, and take
his share of salts and carbon dioxide without precedence, and the
hollyhocks in my garden receive as much consideration as anybody.
Petunias are up all over the place, purple and white and striped. I
knew by experience that we could have too many petunias on this
shelf, so whenever a vague, young pushing thing disclosed itself to
be a petunia, as it nearly always did, I requested Atma to pull it up.
Nevertheless they survive surprisingly everywhere, looking out
among the feet of the roses, flaunting over the forget-me-nots,
unexpected in a box of seedling asters. Now if I were going to
recognize social distinctions in the garden, which I am not, I should
call the good petunia a person unmistakably middle-class. Whether it
is this incapacity of hers to see a snub, or her very full skirt, or her
very high colour, the petunia always seems to me a bourgeoise little
lady in her Sunday best, with her hair smooth and her temper well
kept under for the occasion. I think she leads her family a nagging
life, and goes to church regularly. One should always mass them; a
single petunia here and there among the community of flowers is
more desolate and ineffective than most maiden ladies. Rather late
this spring we discovered a corner of the bed in front of the dining-
room window to be quite empty, and what to put in we couldn’t
think, and were considering, when Atma told us that he knew of a
thousand petunias homeless and roaming the shelf. I quite believed
him, and bade him gather them in, with such a resultant blaze of
purple as I shall never in future be without. The border just beyond
them is simply shouting with yellow coreopsis, and behind that rise
the dark branches of the firs on the khud-side, and between these,
very often in broken pictures sharp against the blue, the jagged
points and peaks of the far snows. All this every morning the person
has with her eggs and bacon who sits opposite the dining-room
window. I am glad to say that the other members of my family
object to the glare.
Atma has a liberal and progressive mind toward the garden; he is
always trying to smuggle some new thing into it. In out-of-the-way
corners I constantly come upon perfect strangers, well-rooted and
entirely at home, and when I ask him by whose order they were
admitted, he smiles apologetically and says that without doubt they
will be very beautiful, and that his brother gave them to him. He can
never tell me the name. “It will be so high,” he shows me with his
hand, stooping, “and the flower will be red, simply red it will arrive.”
I look at it without enthusiasm, and weakly let it stay. Generally it
“arrives” a common little disappointment, but once a great leggy
thing turned out an evening primrose, and I knew, before it was too
late, that I had been entertaining an angel unawares.
“To grow a little catholic,” writes Stevenson, “is the compensation of
years.” Dear shade, is it so? In the spiritual outlook, perhaps, in the
moral retrospect,—but in matters of taste, in likes and dislikes? You
who wrote nothing lightly must have proved this dispensation,
poorer spirits can only wish it more general. I remember youth as
curious and enterprising, hospitable to everything, and I begin to
find the middle years jealously content with what they have. Who,
when he has reached the age of all the world, looks with instinctive
favour upon anything new? An acquaintance, who may create the
common debt of friendship; you are long since heavily involved. An
author, who may insist upon intimately engaging your intelligence,—
a thing you feel, after a time, to be a liberty in a new-comer. Or even
a flower, offering another sentiment to the little store that holds
some pain already. Now this godetia. I suppose it argues a depth of
ignorance, but until Mr. Johnson recommended it to me in the
spring, I had never heard of godetia. Mr. Johnson is the source of
seeds and bulbs for Simla, we all go to him; but I, for one, always
come away a little ruffled by his habit of referring to everything by
its Latin name, and plainly showing that his respect for you depends
upon your understanding him. I have wished to preserve Mr.
Johnson’s respect, and things have come up afterward that I did not
think I had ordered. However, this is by the way. Mr. Johnson
assured me that godetia had a fine fleshy flower of variegated
colours, would be an abundant bloomer, and with reasonable care
should make a good appearance. I planted it with misgivings, and
watched its advent with aloofness, I knew I shouldn’t recognize it,
and I didn’t. I had never seen it before, I very nearly said so; and at
my time of life, with so many old claims pressing, I could not
attempt a new affection. And I have taken the present opportunity,
when Atma’s back is turned, and pulled it all up. Besides it may have
been fleshy, but it wasn’t pretty, and the slugs ate it till its
appearance was disgraceful.
I suppose our love of flowers is impregnated with our love of life and
our immense appreciation of each other. We hand our characteristics
up to God to figure in; we look for them in animals with delight and
laughter, and it is even our pleasure to find them out here in the
garden. Who cares much for lupins, for example; they are dull
fellows, they have no faces; yet who does not care for every flower
with a heart and eyes, that gives back your glance to you and holds
up its head bravely to any day’s luck, as you would like to do.
But it is growing late. I can still see a splendid crimson cactus
glooming at me from his tub in the verandah; the rest of the garden
has drawn away into the twilight. Only the honeysuckle, that nobody
notices when the sun is bright and the flowers all talk at once, sends
out a timid sweetness to the night and murmurs, “I am here.” If I
might have had a seam to do, it would have been finished; but
instead there has been this vexatious chapter, which only
announces, when all is said and done, that another human being has
spent a day in the garden. I intended to write about the applied
affections.
But it is too late even for the misapplied affections, generally
thought, I believe, the more interesting presentment. Happy Thisbe
on the verandah, conscious of another bud to her tapestry, glances
at the fading west and makes ready to put all away. I will lay down
my pen, as she does her needle, and gather up my sheets and
scraps, as she does her silks and wools; and humbly, if I can get no
one else to do it for me, carry my poor pattern into the house.
 Chapter X
THE Princess has a hill almost entirely to herself. She lives there in a
castle almost entirely made of stone, with turrets and battlements.
Her affectionate subjects cluster about her feet in domiciles walled
with mud and principally roofed with kerosene tins, but they
cheerfully acknowledge this to be right and proper, and all they can
pay for. One of the many advantages of being a princess is that you
never have to put down anything for house-rent; there is always a
castle waiting for you and a tax-payer happy to paper it. The world
will not allow that it is responsible to a beggar for a crust; but it is
delighted to admit that it owes every princess a castle. It is a curious
world; but it is quite right, for princesses are to be encouraged and
beggars aren’t.
The Princess is married to the Roy-Regent, who puts his initial upon
Resolutions and writes every week to the Secretary of State; but it is
the Princess who is generally “at home,” and certainly the Princess
who matters. The Roy-Regent may induce his Government to make
Resolutions; the Princess could persuade it, I am sure, to break
them—if she wanted to. Unfortunately we are not permitted to see
that comedy, which would be adorable. She does not want to. She is
not what you would call a political princess; I have no doubt she has
too much else to do. To begin with, only to begin with, she has to go
on being beautiful and kind and unruffled; she has to keep the
laughter in her eyes and the gentleness in her heart; she has to be
witty without being cynical, and initiated without being hard. She
has to see through all our little dodges to win her favour and not
entirely despise us, and to accept our rather dull and very daily
homage without getting sick and tired of us. To say nothing of the
Roy-Regent and the babies who have some claims, I suppose,
though we are apt to talk about the Princess as if she were here
solely to hold her Majesty’s vice-Drawing-rooms and live up to a
public ideal. All the virtues, in short, which the rest of us put on of a
Sunday, the Princess must wear every day; and that is why it is so
difficult and often so tiresome to be a real princess.
Fortunately the Simla Princess is not expected to hold her
commission for life. Her Majesty knew, I suppose, from her own
royal experience, how it got on the nerves, and realized that if she
required anything like that it would be impossible to get the right
kind of people. So at the end of every four or five years the Roy-
Regent goes home to his ordinary place in the Red Book burdened
for life with a frontier policy, but never again compelled to drive out
in the evenings attended by four cantering Sikhs, each Sikh much
larger than himself and shaking a lance. He may go on to greater
things, or he may simply return to the family estates; but in any
case the Princess can put her crown away in a drawer and do things,
if she likes, in the kitchen, which must be a great relief. Of course
she can never quite forget that she has been a princess, in
commission, once. The thought must have an ennobling effect ever
after, and often interpose, as it were, between the word and the
blow in domestic differences. For this reason alone, many of us
would gladly undertake to find the necessary fortitude for the task;
but it is not a thing you can get by merely applying for it.
To the state of the Princess belongs that quaint old-fashioned
demonstration, the curtsey. The Princess curtseys to the Queen-
Empress—how I should like to see her do it!—and we all curtsey to
the Princess. This alone would make Simla a school for manners,
now that you have to travel so far, unless you are by way of running
in and out of Windsor Castle, to find the charming form in ordinary
use. How admirable a point of personal contact lies in the curtsey—
what deference rendered, what dignity due! “You are a Princess,” it
says, “therefore I bend my knee. I am a Person, therefore I
straighten it again,” and many things more graceful, more agreeable,
more impertinent than that. Indeed, there is a very little that cannot
be said in the lines and the sweep of a curtsey. To think there was a
time when conversation was an art, and curtseying an
accomplishment, is to hate our day of monosyllables and short cuts,
of sentiments condensed, and opinions taken for granted. One
wonders how we came to lose the curtsey, and how much more
went with it, how we could ever let it go, to stand instead squarely
on our two feet and nod our uncompromising heads, and say what
we have to say. I suppose it is one of the things that are quite gone;
we can never reaffect it, indeed our behaviour, considered as
behaviour, is growing steadily worse. Already you may be asked, by
a person whom you have never seen before, whether you prefer
Ecclesiastics or Omar Khayyám, or how you would define the ego, or
what you think of Mr. Le Gallienne—matters which require
confidence, almost a curtain. We have lost the art of the gradual
approach; presently we shall hustle each other like kinetic atoms. A
kinetic atom, I understand, goes straight to the point.
We all love curtseying to the Princess therefore, partly because it is a
lost art, and partly because it is a way in which we can say, without
being fulsome or troublesome, how happy we are to see her. There
is only one circumstance under which it is not entirely a privilege.
That is when, dismounted, one meets her in one’s habit. Whether it
is the long boots or the short skirt, or the uncompromising cut, I
cannot say, but I always feel, performing a curtsey to the Princess in
my habit, that I am in a false position. Every true woman loves to
stalk about in her habit, and tap her heels with her riding crop; there
is a shadow of the privileges of the other sex about it which is
alluring, and which, as the costume is sanctioned, one can enjoy
comfortably; but it is not arranged for curtseying, and there ought to
be a dispensation permitting ladies wearing it to bow from the waist.
Then the Princess passes on, leaving you smiling. I have seen
people continue to smile in a lower key for twenty minutes after the
Princess has gone by, as water will go on reflecting a glow long after
the sunlight has left it. The effect is quite involuntary, and of course
it looks a little foolish, but it is agreeable to feel, and nobody,
positively nobody, can produce it but the Princess. Indeed the power
to produce it would be a capital test for princesses.
If I were in any way in a position to submit princesses to tests, I
should offer that of the single pea and the twenty feather beds with
confidence to ours. Which is a pride and a pleasure to be able to say
in these days, when ladies thus entitled are so apt to disguise
themselves in strong minds or blunt noses or irritating clothes. It is
delightful to be assured that, in spite of this tendency, the Princess
has not yet vanished, the Princess of the fairy tales, the real
Princess, from among us, that such a one is sitting at the moment in
her castle, not ten minutes’ walk from here, eating marmalade with
a golden spoon, or whatever she likes better than marmalade, and
bringing to life day after day that delight in living which you must
have, or there’s no use in being a princess. It is possible that she
may not put on her diadem every morning; there is no necessity for
that, since you could not imagine her without it; and if she prefers
reading her Browning to watching her gold-fish, it is not in any way
my affair. Indeed, although she occupies a public position, there is
no one who more readily accedes her right to a private life than I,
though, of course, with the rest of her subjects, I would prefer that
she had as little of it as possible. It is said that the Roy-Regent,
knowing what would be expected of her, was not content until he
had found the most beautiful and agreeable Princess there was; and
I can well believe that he sailed over seas and seas to find her,
though it is probably only a tradition that they met at George
Washington’s country seat where the Princess was looking for trailing
arbutus,—another lovely thing whose habitat is the banks of the
Potomac. And an improbable tradition, as George Washington never
encouraged princesses.
Last night there was an entertainment at the castle and among the
guests a chief of one of those smaller Indias that cluster about the
great one. He wore his own splendid trappings, and he was a
handsome fellow, well set up; and above his keen dark face, in front
of the turban, set round with big irregular pearls, was fastened a
miniature of the Queen-Empress who holds his fealty in her hand. To
him the Princess, all in filmy lace with her diadem flashing, spoke
kindly. They sat upon gold-backed chairs a little way apart, and as
she leaned to confer her smile and he to receive it, I longed to frame
the picture and make perpetual the dramatic moment, the exquisite
odd chance. “Surely,” thought I, “the world has never been so
graciously bridged before.” Talking of George Washington, if the
good man could have seen that, I think he might have melted
toward princesses; I do not think, from all we know of him, that he
would have had the heart to turn coldly away and disclaim
responsibility for this one. I wish he could have seen it; yes, and
Martha too, though if anybody thought necessary to make trouble
and talk about sacred principles of democracy, it would have been
Martha. Martha, she would have been the one. Her great and
susceptible husband would have taken a philosophic pinch of snuff
and toasted posterity.
I see that I have already admitted it, I have slipped in the path of
virtuous resolution and lofty indifference; I have gone back, just for
a minute, into the world. The reason I have neglected every flower
in the garden this morning to write about the Princess is that I have
been dining with her. It is so difficult to be unmoved and firm when
you know the band will play and there will be silver soup-plates, to
say nothing of the Roy-Regent smiling and pleased to see you, and
the Roman punch in the middle of the menu. At home, one so
seldom has Roman punch in the middle of the menu. Besides, now
that I think of it, it was a “command” invitation, and I did not go for
any of these reasons, or even to see the Princess, but because I had
to; a lofty compulsion of State was upon me, and nobody would
place her loyalty in question on account of a possible draught. If
there had been a draught and I had taken cold I should have felt an
added nobility to-day; somewhat the virtue, I suppose, of the elderly
statesman who contracts a fatal influenza at a distinguished
interment, and so creates a vicious circle of funerals; but there was
no draught.
The Princess lives in splendid isolation. If it were not for the Roy-
Regent and the babies, and the Commander-in-Chief and his family,
she would die of loneliness. And of course the Bishop, though I can’t
understand in what way one would depend much upon a bishop,
except to ask a blessing when he came to dinner. Kind and human
as the Princess is she lives in another world, with an A.D.C. always
going in front to tell people to get up, “Their Excellencies are
coming.” You cannot ask after the Princess’s babies as you would ask
after the babies of a person like yourself; you must say, “How are
Your Excellency’s babies?” and this at once removes them far beyond
the operation of your affectionate criticism. When it is impossible
even to take babies for granted the difficulties of the situation may
be imagined. The situation is glorious but troubling, your ideas often
will not flow freely in it, and is there anything more dreadful at a
supreme moment than to have your ideas stick? You find yourself
saying the same thing you said the last time you had the honour,
which is the most mortifying thing that can happen in any
conversation.
I often wonder whether the Princess does not look at our little mud
houses and wish sometimes that she could come in. The thought is
a reckless one but I do entertain it. If you take a kind and friendly
interest in people as the Princess does in us all, you cannot be
entirely satisfied merely to add them up as population and set them
a good example. Nor can it be very interesting to look at the little
mud houses and observe only that they have chimneys, and not to
know how the mantelpieces are done or whether there is a piano, or
if anybody else’s sweet-peas are earlier than yours. In my dreams I
sometimes invite the Princess to tea. An A.D.C. always comes behind
her carrying the diadem on a red silk cushion, but at my earnest
prayer he is made to stay outside on the verandah. We have the
best china; and in one dream the Princess broke a cup and we wept
together. On another occasion she gave me a recipe for pickled
blackberries and told me of a way—I always forget the way—of
getting rid of frowns. There is generally something to spoil a dream,
and the thing that spoils this one is the A.D.C., who will look in at
the window. All the same we have a lovely time, the Princess
ignoring all her prerogatives, unless I say something about the state
of the country, when she instantly, royally, changes the subject....
 Chapter XI
IF you choose to live on the top of one of the Himalayas there are
some things you must particularly pay for. One of them is earth. Your
mountain, if it is to be depended upon, is mostly made of rock and I
have already mentioned how radically it slopes. So a garden is not at
all a thing to be taken for granted. Sometimes you have a garden
and sometimes only a shaly ledge, or you may have a garden to-day
which to-morrow has slid down the hill and superimposed itself upon
your neighbour below. That occurs in the rains; it is called a “slip.” It
has never been our experience because the shelf is fairly flat; but it
has happened to plenty of people. I suppose such a garden is
recoverable, if you are willing to take the trouble, but it could never
be quite the same thing. The most permanent plot, however,
requires all kinds of attention, and one of the difficulties is to keep it
up to its own level. Queer sinkings and fallings away are always
taking place in the borders. Atma professes to find them quite
reasonable; he says the flowers eat the earth and of course it
disappears. The more scientific explanation appears to me to be that
the gnomes of the mountain who live inside, have been effecting
repairs, and naturally the top falls in. It may be said that gnomes are
not as a rule so provident; but very little has yet been established
about the Himalayan kind; they might be anything; they probably
are.
This whole morning Atma and I have been patching the garden. At
home when you buy a piece of land you expect that enough earth
will go with it for ordinary purposes, but here you buy the land first
and the earth afterwards, as you want it, in basketfuls. There is
plenty in the jungle, beautiful leaf-mould, but it is against the law to
collect it there for various reasons, all of them excellent and
tiresome; you must buy it instead from the Town Council, and it
costs fourpence a basket. Tiglath-Pileser says it is the smallest
investment in land he ever heard of, but it takes a great many
baskets, and when the bill comes in I shall be glad to know if he is
still of that opinion. Meanwhile coolie after coolie dumps his load and
I have heard of no process that more literally improves the property.
You will imagine whether, when anything is pulled up, we do not
shake the roots.
How far a sharp contrast will carry the mind! I never shake a root in
these our limited conditions without thinking of the long loamy
stretches of the Canadian woods where there was leaf-mould
enough for a continent of gardens, and of the plank “sidewalk” that
half-heartedly wandered out to them from the centre of what was a
country town in my day, adorned perhaps at some remote and
unfenced corner by a small grocery shop where hickory nuts in a
half-pint measure were exposed for sale in the window. I am no
longer passionately addicted to hickory nuts—you got the meat out
with infinite difficulty and a pin, and if it was obstinate you sucked it
—but nothing else, except perhaps the smell in the cars of the train-
boy’s oranges, will ever typify to me so completely the liberal and
stimulating opportunities of a new country. The town when I was
there last had grown into a prosperous city, and there were no
hickory nuts in its principal stores, but at the furthest point of a
suburban sidewalk I found the little grocery still tempting the school
children of the neighbourhood with this unsophisticated product and
the half-pint measure in the window. I resisted the temptation to
buy any, but I stood and looked so long that the proprietress came
curious to the door. And along that sidewalk you might have taken a
ton of leaf-mould before anybody made it his business to stop you.
We must acknowledge our compensations. Over there they certainly
get their leaf-mould cheaper than fourpence a basket, but they have
nobody to make things grow in it under a dollar a day. Here Atma,
the invaluable Atma, labours for ten rupees a month—about fourteen
shillings—and cooks his own meal cakes. The man who works for a
dollar a day does it in the earnest hope, if we are to believe his later
biographer, of a place in ward politics and the easier situation of a
local boss. It would be hard to infect Atma with such vulgar
ambitions. He is so lately from the hands of his Creator that he has
not even yet conceived the idea of accumulation. The other day I
told him that he might take a quantity of seed and surplus plants,
and sell them, and he would not. “I, how shall I sell?” he said, “I am
a gardener. This thing is done by Johnson-sahib,” and he looked at
me with amusement. I called him by a foolish name and told him
that he should surely sell, and get money; but he shook his head still
smiling. “By your honour’s favour,” he said, “month by month I find
ten rupees. From this there is food twice a day and clothes, and two
or three rupees to go by the hand of an old man who comes from
my people. It is enough. What more?” I mentioned the future.
“Old?” he cried, “God knows if I will be old. At this time I am a work-
doing wallah. When I am old and your honours are gone to Belaat,
[2] I also will go, and live with my people.”

“And they will, without doubt, give you food and clothes?” I asked.
“According as there is,” he said, “without doubt they will give it,” and
went on with his work.
Here, if you like, was a person of short views and unvexed
philosophy. A lecture upon the importance of copper coins trembled
on my lips, but I held it back. A base aim is a poor exchange for a
lesson in content, and I held it back, wondering whether my servant
might not be better off than I, in all that he could do without.
Alas for the poor people who have to pay at the rate of a dollar a
day and mind their own business into the bargain! Never can they
know one of the greatest pleasures of life, to be served by a serving
people. There is a spark of patriarchal joy, long extinct west of Suez,
in the simple old interpretation which still holds here, of the relation
of master and servant, scolding and praise, favour and wrath; a
lifelong wage and occasionally a little medicine are still the portion of
the servant-folk, accepted as a matter of course, and “Thou wilt not
hear orders?” ever a serious reproach. To all of us Outlanders of the
East, it is one of the consolations of exile, and to some of us a keen
and constant pleasure to be the centre and source of prosperity for
these others, a simple, graphic, pressing opportunity to do justice
and love mercy and walk humbly with their God. I, personally, like
them for themselves—who could help liking Atma?—and of persons
to whom they do not at all appeal I have my own opinion. It is the
difference of race, no doubt, which makes this relation possible and
enjoyable, the difference, and what we are accustomed to consider
the superiority, of ours. At home all generous minds are somewhat
tormented by a sense of the unfairness of the menial brand, and in
the attitude of the menial mind there is nothing to modify that
impression.
Servants in this place are regarded as luxuries, and taxed. So much
you pay per capita, and whether the capita belongs to a body
entirely in your employment, or to one which only serves you in
common with several other people, it doesn’t matter; all the same
you pay. Delia and I share a dhurjee, or sewing man, for example,
and we are both chargeable for him. This I never could reconcile
with my sense of justice and of arithmetic,—that the poll-tax of a
whole man should be paid on half a tailor; but there is no
satisfaction to be got out of Tiglath-Pileser. Some people have more
respect for the law than it really deserves. I had the pleasure,
however, of bringing him to a sense of his responsibilities when the
tax-paper came in, from which he learned that no less than fifteen
heads of families looked to him to be their providence. Under the
weight of this communication he turned quite pale, and sat down
hastily upon the nearest self-sustaining object, which happened to
be the fender. But as a matter of fact he liked the idea. Every
Englishman does, and this is why a certain measure of success
attends not only his domestic but his general experiments in
governing the East. He loves the service of an idea, and nothing
flatters him so truly as his conception of all that he has to do.
The ear sharpens if its owner lives in the garden. It is no longer
muffled by the four walls of a house, and remote sounds visit it,
bringing with them a meaning which somehow they never have
indoors, even when they penetrate there. Up here they principally
make one aware of the silence, which is such a valuable function of
sounds. I should like to write a chapter about the quiet of Simla, but
of course if one began like that one would never finish. It is our vast
solace, our great advantage; we live without noise. The great ranges
forbid it; the only thing they will listen to is a salute from the big
gun, and they pass that from one to another, uncertain that is not an
insult. And the quenching comment in the silence that follows!
It is tremendous, invincible, taken up and rewritten in the lines of all
the hills. It stands always before our little colony, with a solemn
finger up, so that a cheer from the cricket ground is a pathetic thing,
and the sound of the Roy-Regent’s carriage wheels awakens
memories of Piccadilly. We are far withdrawn and very high up, fifty-
six miles down to the level, and then it is only empty India—and the
stillness lies upon us and about us and up and down the khuds,
almost palpable and so morne, but with the sweetest melancholy.
Consider, you of London and New York, what it must be to live on
one mountain-side and hear a crow caw across the valley, on the
other. Of course we are a Secretariat people; we have no factory
whistles.
This afternoon, however, I hear an unlicensed sound. It is the sound
of an infant giving tongue, and it comes from the quarters. Now
there ought not to be a baby in the quarters; it is against all orders.
No form of domestic ménage is permitted there; the place is
supposed to be a monastery, and the servants to house their
women-folk elsewhere. The sound is as persistent as it is
unwarrantable; it is not only a breach of custom, but displeasing.
How am I to reckon with it? I may send for Dumboo and complain.
In that case the noise will cease at once; they will give opium to the
child, which will injure its digestion, and in the future, as a grown-up
person, it will enjoy life less because I could not put up with its
crying as an infant. I can report the matter to Tiglath-Pileser, which
would mean an end to the baby, not illegally, by banishment. But is
it so easy? One approves, of course, of all measures to discourage
them about the premises, but when in spite of rules and regulations
a baby has found its way in, and is already lamenting its worldly
prospects at the top of its voice, in honest confidence that at least
the roof over its head will be permanent, a complication arises. I
cannot dislodge such a one. Better deafness and complicity.
Far down the khud-side an Imperial bugle. Abroad the spaces the
mountains stand in, and purple valleys deepening. Among the
deodars a whisper, not of scandal, believe me. A mere
announcement that the day is done. On the other side of the hill a
pony trotting, farther and fainter receding, but at the farthest and
faintest it is plain that he goes short in front. From the bazaar a
temple bell, with the tongue of an alien religion....
 Chapter XII
TO-DAY I think India, down below there on the other side of the hill,
must be at its hottest. A white dust haze hangs over the plains, but
we know what is going on under it; nearly all of us have gasped
through June more than once in those regions. It is the time when
you take medical advice before committing yourself to a railway
journey, even with the provision of a cracked-ice pillow,—the
favourite time to step out of the train and die of cholera in the
waiting room. It is also the very special time for the British private
soldier to go out in anger and kick with his foot the punkah-wallah
who has fallen asleep with the slack rope in his hand, so that the
punkah-wallah, in whom is concealed unknown to the private soldier
an enlarged spleen, immediately dies. There is then trouble and
high-talking, because of the people who consider that the death of a
punkah-wallah demands the life of a private soldier who only meant
to admonish him, a contention which cannot be judged without a
knowledge of the relative values concerned, and an experience of
the temperature in which the rash and negligent act was committed.
There is reason in the superstition which associates great heat with
the devil. Operating alone, it can do almost as much as he can.
The dust haze from the plains hangs all about us, obscuring even
the near ranges, impalpable but curiously solid. It has a flavour
which it is impossible not to taste if ever one breathes through the
mouth, and hour by hour it silently gathers upon the furniture. It has
been like this for a week, pressing round us at a measured distance,
which just enables us to see our own houses and gardens. Within
that space, the sunlight and every circumstance as usual. It is a little
like living under a ground-glass bell. Do not choose the present time
of year to come to see Simla. You would have to make a house-to-
house visitation, and piece it together from memory.
Even here, in the garden, much too hot the eye of heaven shines. I
have abandoned the pencil-cedar, and taken refuge under a trellis
covered with a banksia rose, which is thicker, and I have added to
my defences a pith hat and an umbrella. Notwithstanding these
precautions, we all gasp together to-day in the garden; and I am
inclined to agree with the mignonette, which is not as a rule
talkative, that this is no longer the summer—exquisite word—that
we expect in Simla, but the odious “hot weather” which comes
instead in the country down below. The mignonette, by the way,
stands to my discernment, immediately under the pencil-cedar.
When I sowed it there in the spring, Tiglath-Pileser said, “It will
never do anything under a conifer.” When it began to show, he said
again, “It may come up, but it will never do anything. Nothing ever
does anything under a conifer.” Atma was not of this advice. “Come
up?” he said, looking at it sternly, “wherefore should it not come up,
if your honour wishes it?” Atma always takes this view; he seems to
suppose that the flowers, like himself, are above all things anxious to
please, and if any of them fail in their duty, he implies, with
indignation, that he will know the reason why. But his opinion is too
constant, and I did not trust it about the mignonette. I insisted,
instead, that every morning the fallen cedar spines should be picked
out of it, and the earth freshly stirred about the roots; and I have a
better patch of mignonette under my conifer than can be produced
anywhere else in the garden. I am sure that the shade of a conifer is
no less beneficial than any other kind of shade, except that there is
never enough of it; nor can I accept the theory that there is
anything poisonous in the spines. They only pack and only lie very
closely together, never blown about like leaves, and so keep away
the air and light, and if you happen to have the use of twenty or
thirty brown fingers to pick them out, there is no reason why you
cannot produce quantities of things beside mignonette under a
conifer. Do anything? I do not know a more able-bodied or hard-
working flower on the shelf.
A thing like that offers one for some time afterwards a valuable
handle in arguments.
However you do it, there is no more delicious experience in life than
to put something beautiful where nothing was before, I mean in any
suitable empty space. I have done it; I have had the consummation
of this pleasure for a fortnight. There was no goldenrod in Simla till I
went to America and got it. I make the lofty statement with
confidence, but subject to correction. Some one may have thought
of it long ago, and may be able to confront me with finer plumes
than mine. If this should be so, I shall accept it with reluctance and
mortification, and hereby promise to go and admire the other
person’s, which is the most anybody can do; but my pride does not
expect such a fall.
It is the Queen’s goldenrod, not the President’s, though he has a
great deal of it and makes, I think, rather more fuss about it. A field
flower of generous mind, it ignores the political line, and I gathered
the seed one splendid autumn afternoon in Canada; so here on the
shelf it may claim its humble part in the Imperial idea. A friend of my
youth lent herself to the project; she took me in her father’s buggy,
and as we went along the country roads I saw again in the light of a
long absence, the quiet of the fields and the broad pebbled stretches
of the river, and the bronze and purple of the untrimmed woods that
had always been for me the margin of the thought of home. The
quiet of after-harvest held it all, nothing was about but a chipmunk
that ran along the top of a fence; you could count the apples in the
orchards among their scanty leaves; it was time to talk and to
remember. And so, not by anything unusual that we did or said, but
by the rare and beautiful correspondence that is sometimes to be
felt between the sentiment of the hour and the hour itself, this
afternoon took its place in the dateless calendar of the heart which
is so much more valuable a reference than any other. What a delight
it is when old forgotten things construct themselves again and the
years gather into an afternoon! And is there any such curious
instance of real usefulness for hidden treasure in the attic?
We found masses of goldenrod, all dry and scattering, principally
along the railway embankment, which we took for a good omen that
it would be a travelling flower; and in the fulness of time it was
given to Atma with instructions. His excitement was even greater
than mine, he nursed it tenderly, but it needed no nursing. It came
up in thousands delighted with itself and the new climate,
overrunning its boxes so that Atma pointed to it like a proud father.
Then we planted it out along the paling behind the coreopsis, and it
immediately—that is to say in three months’ time—grew to be five
feet high, with the most thick and lovely yellow sprays, which have
been waving there against the fir-trees, as I said before, for the last
fortnight. It has quite lost the way to its proper season; at home it
blossoms in September and this is only June,—but it appears to be
rather the better than the worse for that, though it does seem to
look about, as the Princess said when I sent her some, for the red
sumach which is its friend and companion at home. It is itself like a
little fir-tree with flat spreading branches of blossom, especially
when it stands in groups as they do, and the sun slants upon it
giving the sprays an edge of brighter gold so that it is the most
luminous thing in the garden. And the warm scent of it, holding
something so far beyond itself and India, something essential,
impregnated with the solace that one’s youth and its affections are
not lost, but only on the other side of the world!
Another delightful thing about the goldenrod is the way the bees and
butterflies instantly found it out. The sprays are dotted with them all
day long, swaying and dipping with the weight of the little greedy
bodies; their hum of content stands in the air with the warm and
comfortable scent. “This is good fare” they seem to say. “There are
some things they make better in America.” I had never before done
anything for a bee or a butterfly, it is not really so easy, and I would
not have believed there was such pleasure in it. “Le fleur qui vole”—
is not that charming of M. Bourget?
I suppose it argues a very empty plane of life, but these little
creatures have an immense power of entertaining a person who
spends day after day in the theatre of their activities. I am reminded
that here in India one ought to have marvellous tales to tell of them,
only Simla is not really India, but a little bit of England with an
Adirondack climate and the “insect belt” of Central Asia; and things
are not so wonderful here as you would think to look at us on the
map. Scorpions and centipedes do come up from the plains and live
in the cracks of the wall whence they crawl out to be despatched
when the first fires are lighted, but they have not the venom of
those below. Scorpions Atma will take hold of by the poison bags at
the end of their tails, and hold up in the air dangling and waving
their arms; and nobody even screams at a centipede. Millipedes
which look much more ferocious but are really quite harmless often
run like little express trains across your bath-room walls, and very
large, black, garden spiders also come there to enjoy the damp.
They enjoy the damp, but what they really like is to get into the
muslin curtain over the window and curl up and die. The first time I
saw one of them in the folds of the curtain I thought it would be
more comfortable in the garden and approached it with caution and
a towel, to put it out. Then I perceived from its behaviour—it did not
try to run away, but just drew its legs a little closer under it, as you
or I would do if we absolutely didn’t care what happened so long as
we were left in peace—that it had come there on purpose, being
aware of its approaching end. I decided that the last moments of
even a spider should be respected, but every day I shook the curtain
and he drew his legs together a little more feebly than the day
before, until at last he dropped out, the shell of a spider, comfortably
and completely dead. I admired his expiring, it was business-like and
methodical, the thing he had next to do, and he was so intent upon
it, not in any way to be disturbed or distracted, asking no question
of the purposes of nature, simply carrying them out. One might
moralize.
Talking of spiders I have just seen a fly catch one. It was, of course,
an ichneumon fly. One has many times heard of his habit of
pouncing upon his racial enemy, puncturing and paralyzing him and
finally carrying him off, walling him up and laying an egg in him, out
of which comes a young ichneumon to feed upon his helpless vitals;
but one does not often see the tragedy in the air. He held his fat
prey quite firmly in his merciless jaws and he went with entrain, the
villain! The victim spider and the assassin fly! One might moralize
again.
It is hotter than ever, and the sunlight under the ground-glass bell
has a factitious look, as if we had here a comedy with a scene of
summer. A hawk-moth darts like a hummingbird in and out of the
honeysuckle, and a very fine rose-chafer all in green and gold paces
across this paragraph. I believe there are more rose-chafers this
year than there ought to be, and Atma has a heavy bill against them
in every stage of their existence, but they are such attractive
depredators. When I find one making himself comfortable in the
heart of a La France, I know very well that on account of the white
grub he was once and the many white grubs he will be again I ought
to kill him and think no more about it; but one hesitates to send a
creature out of the world who exercises such good taste when he is
in it. I know it is quite too foolish to write, but the extent of my
vengeance upon such a one is only to put him into a common rose.
The birds are silent; the butterflies bask on the gravel like little ships
with big sails. Even the lizards have sought temporary retirement
between the flower-pots. I am the only person who is denied her
natural shelter and compelled to resort to an umbrella. Tiglath-
Pileser said the other day that he thought it was quite time I made
some acknowledgment of the good it was doing me. It is doing me
good—of course. But what strikes me most about it is the wonderful
patience and fortitude people can display in having good done to
them.
 Chapter XIII
I HAVE had a morning of domestic details with the Average Woman.
I don’t quite know whether one ought to write about such things, or
whether one ought to draw a veil; I have not yet formed a precise
opinion as to the function of the commonplace in matter intended
for publication. But surely no one should scorn domestic details,
which make our universal background and mainstay of existence.
Theories and abstractions serve to adorn it and to give us a notion
of ourselves: but we keep them mostly for lectures and sermons, the
monthly reviews, the original young man who comes to tea. All
would be glad to shine at odd times, but the most luminous
demonstration may very probably be based upon a hatred of cold
potatoes and a preference for cotton sheets. And of course no one
would dare to scorn the average woman; she is the backbone of
society. Personally I admire her very humbly, and respect her very
truly. For many of us, to become an average woman is an ambition.
I think I will go on.
Besides, Thalia interrupted us, and Thalia will always lend herself to
a chapter.
The Average Woman is not affectionate but she is solicitous, and
there was the consideration of my original situation and my tiresome
health. Then she perceived that I had a garden and that it was a
pretty garden. I said, indifferently, that people thought so; I knew it
was a subject she would not pursue unless she were very much
encouraged, and there was no reason at all why she should pursue
it; she would always be a visitor in such a place, whereas there were
many matters which she could treat with familiar intelligence. I was
quite right; she wandered at once into tins of white enamel, where it
seemed she had already spent several industrious hours. We
sympathized deeply over the extent to which domestic India was
necessarily enamelled, though I saw a look of criticism cross her
face when I announced that I hoped one day to be rich enough not
to possess a single article painted in that way—not a chair, not a
table. I think she considered my declaration too impassioned, but
she did not dissent from it. That is a circumstance one notes about
the Average Woman: she never dissents from anything. She never
will be drawn into an argument. One could make the most wild and
whirling statement to her, if one felt inclined, and it is as likely as not
that she would say “Yes indeed,” or “I think so too,” and after a little
pause of politeness go on to talk about something else. I can’t
imagine why one never does feel inclined.
We continued to discuss interior decoration, and I learned that she
was preparing a hearth seat for her drawing-room, one of those low
square arrangements projecting into the room before the fire, upon
which two ladies may sit before dinner and imagine they look
picturesque, while the rest of the assembled guests, from whom
they quite cut off the cheerful blaze, wonder whether they do. The
Average Woman declared that she could no longer live without one.
“As time goes on one notices that fewer and fewer average women
can,” I observed absently, and hastily added, “I mean, you know,
that of course very portly ladies—”
“Oh, I see,” said she. “No, of course not.”
“So long,” I went on, pursuing the same train of thought, “as one
can sit down readily upon a hearth seat, and especially so long as
one can clasp one’s knees upon it, one is not even middle-aged. To
clasp one’s knees is really to hug one’s youth.”
“I had such a pretty one in Calcutta,” said the Average Woman. “So
cosy it looked. Everybody admired it.”
“But in Calcutta,” I exclaimed with astonishment, “it is always so hot
—and there are no fireplaces.”
“Oh, that didn’t matter,” replied she triumphantly, “I draped the
mantelpiece. It looked just as well.” And yet there are people who
say that the Average Woman has no imagination.
“Talking of age,” she continued, “how old do you suppose Mrs. ——
is? Somebody at tiffin yesterday who knew the family declared that
she could not be a day under thirty-seven. I should not give her
more than thirty-five myself. My husband says thirty-two.”
“About a person’s age,” I said, “what can another person’s husband
know?”
“What should you say?” she insisted. I am sorry to have to underline
so much, but you know how the average woman talks in italics. It is
as if she wished to make up in emphasis—but I will not finish that
good-natured sentence.
“Oh,” said I, “you cannot measure Mrs. ——’s age in years! She is as
old as Queen Elizabeth and as young as the day before yesterday.
Parts of her date from the Restoration and parts from the advent of
M. Max Nordau—” At that moment Thalia arrived. “And that is the
age of all the world,” I finished.
“We were wondering,” said the Average Woman, “how old Mrs. ——
is.”
“You were wondering,” I corrected her.
“What does it matter?” said Thalia, which was precisely what I
should have expected her to say. What does it matter? Why should
the average woman excite herself so greatly about this particularly
small thing? How does it bear upon the interest or the attractiveness
or the value of any woman to know precisely how many years she
counts between thirty and forty, at all events to another of her sex?
Yet to the average woman it seems to be the all-important fact, the
first thing she must know. She is enragée to find it out, she will
make the most cunning enquiries and take the most subtle means.
Much as I appreciate the average woman, I have in this respect no
patience with her. It is as if she would measure the pretensions of all
others by recognized rule of thumb with a view to discovering the
surplus claim and properly scoring it down. It is surely a survival
from days when we were much more feminine than we are now; but
it is still very general, even among married ladies, for whom, really,
the question might have an exhausted interest.
“What does it matter?” said Thalia. “I see your fuchsias, like me,
have taken advantage of a fine day to come out. What a lot you’ve
got!”
“Yes,” I said, without enthusiasm, “they were here when we came.”
“Oh, don’t you like them?” exclaimed the Average Woman, “I think
the fuchsia such a graceful, pretty flower.”
“It is graceful and it is pretty,” I assented. There are any number of
fuchsias, as Thalia said, standing in rows along the paling under the
potato-creeper; the last occupant must have adored them. They
remain precisely in the pots in which they were originally cherished.
Knowing that the first thing I do for a flower I like is to put it in the
ground where it has room to move its feet and stir about at night,
and take its share in the joys of the community, Tiglath-Pileser says
compassionately of the fuchsia, “It is permitted to occupy a pot;” but
I notice that he does not select it for his button-hole
notwithstanding.
Thalia looked at me suspiciously. “What have you got against it?”
she demanded, and the Average Woman chorussed, “Now tell us.”
I fixed a fuchsia sternly with my eye. “It’s an affected thing,” I said.
“Always looking down. I think modesty can be an overrated virtue in
a flower. It is also like a ballet-dancer, flaunting short petticoats,
which doesn’t go with modesty at all. I like a flower to be sincere;
there is no heart, no affection, no sentiment about a fuchsia.”
Thalia listened to this diatribe with her head a little on one side.
“You are full of prejudices,” said she, “but there is something in this
one. Nobody could say ‘My love is like a fuchsia.’”
“It depends,” I said; “there are ladies not a hundred miles from here
who thrill when they are told that they walk like the partridge and
shine like the moon. I shouldn’t care about it myself.”
“No, indeed,” said the Average Woman. “That bit beyond the
mignonette seems rather empty. What are you going to put in
there?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said.
“I don’t know,” remarked Thalia combatively, “when there are so
many beautiful things in the world, why you should discriminate in
favour of nothing.”
“Yes, why?” said the Average Woman.
“Well,” I replied defiantly, “that’s my spare bedroom. You’ve got to
have somewhere to put people. I don’t like the feeling that every
border is fully occupied and not a square inch available for any one
coming up late in the season.”
You can see that Thalia considers that while we are respected for
our virtues our weaknesses enable us to enjoy ourselves. She
accepts them as an integral and intentional part of us and from
some of them she even extracts a contemplative pleasure. The
Average Woman looks down upon such things and I did not dare to
encounter her glance of reserved misunderstanding.
Thalia smiled. I felt warmed and approved. “Alas!” said she, “my
garden is all spare bedrooms.” She lives, poor dear, on the other side
of the Jakko and has to wait till September for her summer. “I see
you keep it aired and ready.”
As a matter of fact Atma had freshly turned the earth. I hold to that
in the garden; it seems to me a parallel to good housekeeping. The
new-dug mould makes a most enhancing background; and an empty
bed, if it is only freshly made, offers the mind as much pleasure as a
gay parterre. It is the sense, I suppose, of effort expended and care
taken, and above all it is a stretch of the possible, a vista beyond the
realized present which is as valuable in a garden as it is in life. Oh
no, not as valuable. In life it is the most precious thing, and it is
sparingly accorded. Thalia has it, I know, but I looked at the
Average Woman in doubt. Thalia, whatever else she does, will have
high comedy always for her portion, and who can tell in what scenes
she will play or at what premières she will assist? But the Average
Woman,—can one not guess at the end of ten years what she will be
talking about, what she will have experienced, what she will have
done? I looked at the Average Woman and wondered. She was
explaining to Thalia the qualities of milk tea. I decided that she was
probably happier than Thalia, and that there was no need whatever
to be sorry for her. She stayed a long time; I think she enjoyed
herself; and when she went away of course we talked about her.
We spoke in a vein of criticism, and I was surprised to learn that the
thing about the Average Woman to which Thalia took most
exception was her husband. I had always found the poor patient
creatures entirely supportable, and I said so. “Oh, yes,” replied
Thalia impatiently, “in themselves they’re well enough. But didn’t you
hear her? ‘George adores you in “Lady Thermidore.”’ Now that
annoys me.”
“Does it?” said I. “Why shouldn’t George adore you in Lady
Thermidore if he wants to, especially if he tells his wife?”
“That’s exactly it,” said Thalia. “If he really did he wouldn’t tell her.
But he doesn’t. She just says so in order to give herself the pleasure
of imagining that I am charmed to believe that George—her George
—”
“I see,” I said, sympathetically.
“They are always offering their husbands up to me like that,”
continued Thalia, gloomily. “They expect me, I suppose, to blush
and simper. As if I hadn’t a very much better one of my own!”
“They think it the highest compliment they can pay you.”
“Precisely. That’s what is so objectionable. And besides it’s a
mistake.”
“I shall never tell you that Tiglath-Pileser adores you,” I stated.
“My dear, I have known it for ages!” said Thalia, en se sauvant, as
they do in French novels.
Perhaps the Average Woman is a little tiresome about her husband.
She is generally charged with quoting him overmuch. I don’t think
that; his opinions are often useful and nearly always sensible, but
she certainly assumes a far too general interest for him as a subject
upon which to dwell for long periods. Average wives of officials are
much more distressingly affected in this way than other ladies are; it
is quite a local peculiarity of bureaucratic centres. They cherish the
delusion, I suppose, that in some degree they advance the interests
of these unfortunate men by a perpetual public attitude of adoration,
but I cannot believe it is altogether the case. On the contrary, I am
convinced that the average official husband himself would find too
much zeal in the recounting of his following remarkable traits. His
obstinate and absurd devotion to duty. “In my husband the Queen
has a good bargain!” His remarkable youth for the post he holds,—I
remember a case where my budding affection for the wife of an
Assistant Secretary was entirely checked by this circumstance. The
compliments paid him by his official superiors, those endless
compliments. And more than anything perhaps, his extraordinary
and deplorable indifference to society. “I simply cannot get my
husband out; I am positively ashamed of making excuses for him.”
When her husband is served up to me in this guise I feel my
indignation rising out of all proportion to its subject, always an
annoying experience. Why should I be expected to accept his foolish
idea that he is superior to society, and admire it? Why should I be
assumed to observe with interest whether he comes out; why
indeed, so far as I am concerned, should he not eternally stay in?
It comes to this that one positively admires the woman who has the
reticence to let her husband make his own reputation.
What offends one, I suppose, is the lack of sincerity. A very different
case is that of the simple soul who says, “Tom will not allow me to
have it in the house,” or “Jim absolutely refuses to let me know her.”
One hears that with the warm thrill of mutual bondage; one has
one’s parallel ready—the tyranny I could relate of Tiglath-Pileser!
The note of grievance is primitive and natural; but the woman who
butters her husband in friendly council, what excuse has she?
 Chapter XIV
THE rains have come. They were due on the fifteenth of June and
they are late; this is the twentieth. The whole of yesterday afternoon
we could see them beating up the valleys, and punctually at
midnight they arrived, firing their own salute with a great clap of
thunder and a volley on the roof—it is a galvanized roof—that left no
room for doubt. You will notice that it is the rains that have come
and not the rain; there is more difference than you would imagine
between water and water. The rain is a gentle thing and descends in
England; the rains are untamed, torrential, and visit parts of the
East. They come to stay; for three good months they are with us,
pelting the garden, beating at the panes. It would be difficult for
persons living in the temperate zone to conceive how wet, during
this period, our circumstances are.
One always hears them burst with a feeling of apprehension; it is
such a violent movement of nature, potential of damage, certain of
change; and life is faced next morning at breakfast with a gloom
which is not assumed. A dripping dulness varied by deluges, that is
the prospect for the next ninety days. The emotions of one who will
be expected to support it under an umbrella, with the further
protection of a conifer only, are offered, please, to your kind
consideration. I dreamed as the night wore on of shipwreck in a sea
of mountains on a cane chair, and when I awoke, salvaged in my
bed, it was raining as hard as ever.
At breakfast Tiglath-Pileser said, uneasily, that it would probably
clear up in half an hour. “It simply can’t go on like this,” remarked
Thisbe, and I saw that they were thinking of me, under the conifer.
When you suspect commiseration the thing to do is to enhance it.
“Clear up?” said I with indifference. “Why should it clear up? It has
only just begun.”