The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. | Page 9

to see. She came here from the Museum at Fort Laramie,
and we praised her so injudiciously that she became completely spoiled.
She has performed a round of characters during the last week, very
miserably, though we are bound to confess that her performance of
King Lear last evening was superior to anything of the kind we ever
saw. Miss Pelican is about forty-three years of age, singularly plain in
her personal appearance, awkward and embarrassed, with a cracked and
squeaking voice, and really dresses quite outrageously. _She has much
to learn--poor thing!_
I take it the above notices are rather ingenious. The fact is, I'm no judge
of acting, and don't know how Miss Pelican will turn out. If well, why
there's my notice of June the 1st; if ill, then June 31st comes in play,
and, as there is but one copy of the Sentinel printed, it's an easy matter
to destroy the incorrect one; _both can't be wrong_; so I've made a sure

thing of it in any event. Here follows my musical critique, which I
flatter myself is of rather superior order:
THE PLAINS. ODE SYMPHONIE PAR JABEZ TARBOX.--This
glorious composition was produced at the San Diego Odeon on the 31st
of June, ult., for the first time in this or any other country, by a very full
orchestra (the performance taking place immediately after supper), and
a chorus composed of the entire "Sauer Kraut-Verein," the "Wee Gates
Association," and choice selections from the "Gyascutus" and
"Pike-harmonic" societies. The solos were rendered by Herr Tuden
Links, the recitations by Herr Von Hyden Schnapps, both performers
being assisted by Messrs. John Smith and Joseph Brown, who held
their coats, fanned them, and furnished water during the more
overpowering passages.
"The Plains" we consider the greatest musical achievement that has
been presented to an enraptured public. Like Waterloo among battles;
Napoleon among warriors; Niagara among falls, and Peck among
senators, this magnificent composition stands among Oratorios, Operas,
Musical Melodramas and performances of Ethiopian Serenaders,
peerless and unrivaled. _Il frappe toute chose parfaitement froid._
"It does not depend for its success" upon its plot, its theme, its school
or its master, for it has very little if any of them, but upon its
soul-subduing, all-absorbing, high-faluting effect upon the audience,
every member of which it causes to experience the most singular and
exquisite sensations. Its strains at times remind us of those of the old
master of the steamer McKim, who never went to sea without being
unpleasantly affected;--a straining after effect he used to term it. Blair
in his lecture on beauty, and Mills in his treatise on logic, (p. 31,) have
alluded to the feeling which might be produced in the human mind by
something of this transcendentally sublime description, but it has
remained for M. Tarbox, in the production of "The Plains," to call this
feeling forth.
The symphonie opens upon the wide and boundless plains in longitude
115 degrees W., latitude 35 degrees 21 minutes 03 seconds N., and
about sixty miles from the west bank of Pitt River. These data are

beautifully and clearly expressed by a long (topographically) drawn
note from an E flat clarionet. The sandy nature of the soil, sparsely
dotted with bunches of cactus and artemisia, the extended view, flat and
unbroken to the horizon, save by the rising smoke in the extreme verge,
denoting the vicinity of a Pi Utah village, are represented by the bass
drum. A few notes on the piccolo call attention to a solitary antelope
picking up mescal beans in the foreground. The sun, having an altitude
of 36 degrees 27 minutes, blazes down upon the scene in indescribable
majesty. "Gradually the sounds roll forth in a song" of rejoicing to the
God of Day:
"Of thy intensity
And great immensity
Now then we sing;

Beholding in gratitude
Thee in this latitude,
Curious thing."
Which swells out into "Hey Jim along, Jim along Josey," then
_decrescendo_, _mas o menos_, _poco pocita_, dies away and dries up.
Suddenly we hear approaching a train from Pike County, consisting of
seven families, with forty-six wagons, each drawn by thirteen oxen;
each family consists of a man in butternut-colored clothing driving the
oxen; a wife in butternut-colored clothing riding in the wagon, holding
a butternut baby, and seventeen butternut children running
promiscuously about the establishment; all are barefooted, dusty, and
smell unpleasantly. (All these circumstances are expressed by pretty
rapid fiddling for some minutes, winding up with a puff from the
orpheclide played by an intoxicated Teuton with an atrocious breath--it
is impossible to misunderstand the description.) Now rises o'er the
plains, in mellifluous accents, the grand Pike County Chorus:
"Oh we'll soon be thar
In the land of gold,
Through the forest old,

O'er the mounting cold,
With spirits bold--
Oh, we come, we come,

And we'll soon be thar.
Gee up