Abstract
In December 1868, the 18-year-old Kate O’Flaherty attended a concert given by the famous Norwegian violinist Ole Bull in Saint Louis. The young artist wrote in her journal about the mesmerizing effects of his performance:
To describe the effect his music had upon me would be impossible. It seemed the very perfection of the art, and while listening to him, I for the first time longed to be blind, that I might drink it all in undisturbed and undistracted by surrounding objects. (Toth et al. 63–64)
She did not sing as we did—
It was a different tune—
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.
Emily Dickinson, 14
“One Sister have I in our house” (1858)
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© 2015 Heather Ostman and Kate O’Donoghue
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Gil, E.P. (2015). The Pleasures of Music: Kate Chopin’s Artistic and Sensorial Synesthesia. In: Ostman, H., O’Donoghue, K. (eds) Kate Chopin in Context. American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137543967_6
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