Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1882-03-23
A sHORT-LIVED TRIUMPH.

The grand opera house at Newton was
crowded from the undesirable situations
Immediately behind the orchestral stand
up to the still less desirable quarters, to
he secured for tritling sum in the lofty
elevation of the fifth gallery; that gal
lery built and reserved in ante bellum
days for the slaves who attended their
masters hither, but now only peopled,
when in the attraction of popular favor
lite or rising star it was peopled at all
by the slaves of that harshest most Sc
we're of all masters ers-impecuniosity.
The parquette and dress circle held,
as usual, representatives of the wealthy,
more cultivated and richly dressed in-
habitants of the city, most of whom had
come here, as they went elsewhere,
merely to vile away an idle hour, and
were as wearily indifferent to the
throbbing heart-pulses of the exquisite
melodies as they were to all else in life,
eSaTpt their own qualification.
But in the less aristocratic, lower
priced positions, an oddly contrasting
class, to these spoiled children, nauseat-
ed with their own good fortune, had to-
night found its way. Men to whom the
price of this evening" indulgence meant
day of hard, uninterrupted labor, wo-
men to whom these short two hours of
respite from care and worry in novel
surroundings and under the exciting in
tluence of the musical strains was rev.
elation, an episode to be remembered
through all the coming years, and al
luded to as, THAT evening when l
went to the opera house,: and half
grown youths and maidens to whom the
whole seemed like poetical dream
of fairy land, from which they must
soon awaken to the dull prose of their
daily lives, with only fierce resolution
beating itself into heart and brain, to get
back into this blissful life, to do some
thing, to be somebody.
These members of the middle class,
men, women and children, who in intel
lect and nature were on par with their
richer, highly-favored fellow mortals in
the upper seats at this wondrous ban
quet of sound, but who had been crush
ed and bent to lower level by the iron
heel of poverty, had drunk in the music
al strains from the first low notes of the
orchestral selection, down through the
intervening numbers on the delicately
scented programme, with an unquench-
able, ever-increasing thirst until now.
as the third number from the close was
at hand, their excitement reached its
elimination, and forgetting all their
trouble and pain, they glanced first at
each other with smiling lips and flush
ed, radiant faces, and then back to the
stage with eager, eXpectant eyes to
watch for the first appearing of the
evenings debutante-the young violin
list.
And then she came--a radiant vision,
in sheeny silk and futtering, cloudy
lace, this girl who had dwelt among these
poor, working people-now watch
ing her with such breathless interest.
since the early days of her childhood,
whose sunny face and CHEEKY laughter
had been to them all. in their distress,
as the suns own cloud dispensing beams;
whose wonderful music had so often
poured forth for them, now merry
roundelay to heighten the mirth of we'd
ding or festival; now soft, mournful
strain to carry balm to grieving soul; or
again, d grooming lullaby to still the
sobbings of some fretful child.
"Our musician" they had called her,
with evident pride in the possession,
since the time when the small hands had
first drawn the slumbering harmony
from her fathers priceless instrument,
and had watched the budding genius as
il put forth leaf after leaf, forming the