There is darkness for a brief time then, as the lights come
slowly on, they reveal an absolutely empty space where before
were seen activity and plenty. The music for this scene,
composed by Henry F. Gilbert, was of a character at once weird,
awe-inspiring, almost magical, portraying by tone as plainly as
by words the scene of desolation, sickness and death. It seemed
as if there were an increasing sense of indefinite fear--a deep
impression of solemnity and gravity, as if we were conscious of
contact with the eternities.
A change as unusual as it was unwholesome came upon the ocean.
"As the lights touched the water a purple glow that was to it
like the ashen hue that beclouds the face of the dying. A filmy
green spread over the land and there seemed to arise a miasmatic
vapor like the breath of a brooding pestilence, which clung
clammily to the earth and dulled all life." Every one felt the
presence of trouble impending; one grave question breathed forth
from the haunting music and, unspoken, trembled on every lip;
one overmastering idea blended with and overpowered all others.
"The land and sea were both sick, stagnant, and foul, and there
seemed to arise from their unfathomable depths, drawn by the
weird power of the music, horrid shapes that glared steadily
into the strange twilight they had arisen to."
"Such a morbific, unwholesome condition" cast upon land and sea,
and music that seemed to breathe forth such despair and
desolation, could not but deeply move the audience.
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