What is the source of this quotation?
Critics! Poor devils! Where do they come from? At what age are they
sent to the slaughter house? What is done with their bones? Where do
such animals pasture in the daytime? Do they have females and young?
How many of them handled the brush before being reduced to the broom??

sitrop --

The quotation is from Hector Berlioz's 1859 book "Les Grotesques de la
musique."  My source for this information is "A New Dictionary of
Quotations On Historical Principles From Ancient And Modern Sources,"
selected and edited by H.L. Mencken (Knopf, New York, 1962), at page
239.  The only differences between your restatement of the quotation
and the version used by Mencken are that in Mencken's version
"slaughterhouse" is one word and there is a comma after "females."

Here is a link to a Web page announcing and describing the first full
English translation of the book, which is being released in February
2005 by the University of Rochester Press:

University of Rochester Press: The Musical Madhouse:English
Translation of Berlioz's Les Grotesques de la musique: Edited by
Alastair Bruce: Introduction by Hugh Macdonald
http://www.urpress.com/80461824.HTM 
 

Search Strategy:

I own the Mencken reference book in which the quotation is contained
and guessed (correctly, it turned out) that it might be included
there.


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