The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

What new acquisition of House Berghof was it which at length released our long-standing friend from his patience-playing mania, and flung him into the arms of another passion, nobler, though at bottom no less strange? We are about to relate, being ourselves much taken by the mysterious object, and eager to communicate our enthusiasm.

The excellent management, in its sleepless concern for the happiness of its guests, had considered matters, there in the bowels of the earth, had resolved, and acted. It acquired, at a cost which we need not go into, but which must surely have been considerable, a new device for the entertainment of the patients, and added it to those already installed in the largest of the reception-rooms of House Berghof. Was it some clever artifice, of the same nature as the stereopticon, the kaleidoscope, or the cinematographic cylinder? Yes -- and yet, again, no, far from it. It was not an optical toy which the guests discovered one evening in the salon, and greeted with applause, some of them flinging their hands above their heads, others stooping over and clapping in their laps. It was an acoustical instrument. Moreover, the simple devices above-mentioned were not to be compared with it -- they were outclassed, outvalued, outshone. This was no childish peepshow, like those of which all the guests were sick and tired, at which no one ever looked after the first few weeks. It was an overflowing cornucopia of artistic enjoyment, ranging from grave to gay. It was a musical apparatus. It was a gramophone.