["Music is a serious therapeutic agent, which exercises a
genuine and considerable influence over bodily functions."--_The
Lancet._]
_Monday._--Feel rather out of sorts, slight touch of influenza, I fancy.
Send round for Doctor. He shakes his head gravely, and produces
stethoscope. I protest that there's nothing wrong with my lungs, and
this is, therefore, unnecessary. But he explains that he treats all his
patients by music nowadays; supposed stethoscope turns out to be a
cornet, on which he performs selections from _Il Trovatore_ for my
benefit. Asks me if I feel better, and in order to get rid of him I
pretend that I do. Later on in the day a small musical-box arrives,
labelled "to be taken twice a day." Find it only plays one tune out of
_Rigoletto_. Pitch it out of window.
_Tuesday._--No better. Consult another doctor, who's just taken his
degree (in music) at Oxford, and is supposed to be very clever. He feels
my pulse, and looks solemn. Then he asks if I've been giving way to
Italian opera lately, and appears coldly sceptical when I explain that I
have been taking it by medical advice. Prescribes essence of WAGNER, to
be taken at short intervals. Begin by attending a RICHTER concert. Dr.
RICHTER'S practice is said to be enormous, and every part of St. James's
Hall is thronged by his patients.
_Wednesday._--Better. Receive a large number of patent medicine
circulars--this kind of thing: "Try our Indigestion Waltzes! Warranted
to cure. All headache, giddiness and faintness removed at first time of
hearing." Here's another: "Dentists superseded! All sufferers from
Toothache should attend Herr BOSKOWSKY'S course of Dental Piano
Recitals. Worth a guinea a stall." I also learn that the Hirsutine
Symphony cures baldness, and that the Pink Bavarian Band may be engaged
to play "Slumber-Songs" to sufferers from insomnia.
_Thursday._--Am aroused by five barrel-organs performing simultaneously
under my next-door neighbour's window. Send a note round suggesting they
should be dispersed. Answer "Sorry to cause annoyance, but our youngest
child is suffering from chickenpox, and has been ordered street-music
every three hours." Go out to buy an air-gun. Later in the day,
happening to take up the _Lancet_ at the Club, I find in it a long
article on "The treatment of pleurisy by BEETHOVEN'S Fifth Symphony in C
Minor."
_Friday._--Two seedy-looking men suddenly appear in the drawing-room
after dinner to-night. Discover that they are "The Brothers TITTLEBAT"
from the Abracadabra Music Hall, and that my wife has engaged them, by
her doctor's orders, to sing comic songs every evening for a fortnight,
in order to cure the depression of spirits from which she believes
herself to be suffering. "The Brothers TITTLEBAT" seem to be suffering
themselves from elevation of spirits--gin, to judge by the smell; kick
them out, and decide to emigrate to-morrow.
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