Page:Crotchet Castle - Peacock (1831).djvu/102

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
90
CROTCHET CASTLE.

CAPTAIN FITZCHROME.

You torture me, Clarinda, with the bare possibility:

LADY CLARINDA.

Hush! Here is music to sooth your troubled spirit. Next to him, on this side, sits the dilettante composer, Mr. Trillo; they say his name was O'Trill, and he has taken the O from the beginning, and put it at the end. I do not know how this may be. He plays well on the violoncello, and better on the piano; sings agreeably; has a talent at verse-making, and improvises a song with some felicity. He is very agreeable company in the evening, with his instruments and music-books. He maintains that the sole end of all enlightened society is to get up a good opera, and laments that wealth, genius, and energy, are squandered upon other pursuits, to the neglect of this one great matter.