Under the Greenwood Tree, or, the Mellstock quire; a rural painting of the Dutch school

Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Under the Greenwood Tree Author: Thomas Hardy Release Date: October 28, 2004 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) [eBook #2662]
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE***
Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk from the 1912 Macmillan and Co. edition. Proofed by Margaret Rose Price, Dagny and David Price.
UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE or THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE A RURAL PAINTING OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL by Thomas Hardy
PREFACE
This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west-gallery musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar officials in Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters, and other places, is intended to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and customs which were common among such orchestral bodies in the villages of fifty or sixty years ago. One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) or harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of control and accomplishment which were, no doubt, ...