The "stone chimes", consisting of sonorous stones varying in tone and hanging in frames, which were played on those solemn occasions, have a haunting melody such as can be heard nowhere else.

China, I believe, is the only country that has produced music from stones.

It is naturally gratifying to me to hear that Chinese airs are now having a vogue in London, and that they will soon be heard in New York.

It will take some little time for Westerners to learn to listen intelligently to our melodies which, being always in unison, in one key and in one movement, are apt at first to sound as wearisome and monotonous as Madame Patti's complicated notes did to me, but when they understand them they will have found a new delight in life.
Although we Chinese do not divide our plays into comedies and tragedies there is frequently a good deal of humor on the Chinese stage; yet we have nothing in China corresponding to the popular musical comedy of the West.

A musical comedy is really a series of vaudeville performances strung together by the feeblest of plots.