While they were waiting for dinner Pococurante ordered a concert. Candide found the music delicious.
“This noise,” said the Senator, “may amuse one for half an hour; but if it were to last longer it would grow tiresome to everybody, though they durst not own it. Music, today, is only the art of executing difficult things, and that which is only difficult cannot please long. Perhaps I should be fonder of the opera if they had not found the secret of making of it a monster which shocks me. Let who will go to see bad tragedies set to music, where the scenes are contrived for no other end than to introduce two or three songs ridiculously out of place, to show off an actress’s voice. Let who will, or who can, die away with pleasure at the sight of an eunuch quavering the role of Caesar, or of Cato, and strutting awkwardly upon the stage. For my part I have long since renounced those paltry entertainments which constitute the glory of modern Italy, and are purchased so dearly by sovereigns.”
Candide disputed the point a little, but with discretion. Martin was entirely of the Senator’s opinion.
They sat down to table, and after an excellent dinner they went into the library. Candide, seeing a Homer magnificently bound, commended the virtuoso on his good taste.
“There,” said he, “is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany.”
“It is not mine,” answered Pococurante coolly. “They used at one time to make me believe that I took a pleasure in reading him. But that continual repetition of battles, so extremely like one another; those gods that are always active without doing anything decisive; that Helen who is the cause of the war, and who yet scarcely appears in the piece; that Troy, so long besieged without being taken; all these together caused me great weariness. I have sometimes asked learned men whether they were not as