It Is
A Splicing Of The Sounds Of One Instrument Upon Another.
Yet if the
invention were to be left where it is, in Colman's instrument, it could
not succeed with the public.
The notes of the reeds are too harsh and
nasal, and want the sweetness and mellowness of tone which belong to the
string of the piano.
At present the invention is in the hands of Mr. Rand, the portrait
painter, a countryman of ours, who is one of the most ingenious
mechanicians in the world. He has improved the tones of the reeds till
they rival, in softness and fullness, those of the strings, and, in fact,
can hardly be distinguished from them, so that the sounds of the two
instruments run into one another without any apparent difference. Mr. Rand
has contrived three or four different machines for making the reeds with
dispatch and precision; and if the difficulty of keeping the strings,
which are undergoing a constant relaxation, in perfect unison with the
reeds can be overcome, I see nothing to prevent the most complete and
brilliant success.
Letter XXVII.
Changes in Paris.
Paris, _August_ 9, 1845.
My last letter was dated at London, in my passage across England. I have
been nearly a fortnight in Paris. In ten years I find a considerable
change in the external aspect of this great capital. The streets are
cleaner, in many of them sidewalks have been made, not always the widest
to be sure, but smoothly floored with the asphaltum of Seyssel, which
answers the purpose admirably; the gutters have been removed from the
middle of the street to the edge of the curbstone, and lately the
curbstone has been made to project over them, so that the foot-passengers
may escape the bespattering from carriage-wheels which he would otherwise
be sure to get in a rainy day, and there are many such days in this
climate - it has rained every day but one since I entered France.
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