? Would I listen to this, and this, and this, and say if anything more sublimely sacred and grand had ever been composed by mortal man?”⁠—And without waiting for a word of assent or dissent on my part, looking me hard in the face all the time, he began thundering on the piano, and singing to it with loud and lofty enthusiasm⁠—only interrupting himself, at intervals, to announce to me fiercely the titles of the different pieces of music: “ Chorus of Egyptians in the Plague of Darkness , Miss Halcombe!”⁠—“ Recitativo of Moses with the Tables of the Law .”⁠—“ Prayer of Israelites, at the Passage of the Red Sea . Aha! Aha! Is that sacred? is that sublime?” The piano trembled under his powerful hands, and the teacups on the table rattled, as his big bass voice thundered out the notes, and his heavy foot beat time on the floor.