The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-02-18

The young man led me towards her, and she placed two delicate jeweled hands on my shoulders, looking at me steadily in the face.
 "Where did you learn to play like that, my boy?" she asked.
 "I cannot remember when I could not fiddle, madame" answered, which was true.
 "The boy is born musician, Felix" said Lady Greville. "Look at his hands,"
 And she held up mine to the young mans notice; he glanced at them care- lessly.
 "Yes, Miladi," said the young man, "they are real violin hands. What were you playing just now, my lad?"
 "I don't know, sir," said. "I play just what comes into my head"
 Lady Greville looked at her nephew with glance of triumph.
 "What did tell you?" she cried. "The boy is a genius, Felix. I shall have him educated"
 "All your geese are swans, auntie," said the young man in English.
 Lady Greville, however, ignored 1 this thrust
 "Will you play for me now, my dear," she said, ''as you did before, just what comes into your head?"
 nodded, and was getting my fiddle to my chin, when she stopped me.
 "Not that thing" bestowing glance of contempt at my instrument. "Felix, the Stradivarius."
 The young man went to the other side of the room, and returned with the case which I had noticed He put it into my hand, with the injunction to handle it gently. I had never heard of Cremona violins, nor of my name sake, Stradivarius, but at the sight of the dark seasoned wood, reposing on it's blue velvet, I could not restrain cry of admiration.
 l have that same instrument in my room now, and l would not trust it in the hands of another for a million.
 lifted the violin tenderly from it's case, and ran my bow up the gamut. l felt almost intoxicated at the mel low sound it uttered. I could nave kissed the dark wood, that looked to me stained through and through with melody.
 began to play. My Improvisation was song of triumph and delight; the music, at first rapid and joyous, became slowerand more solemn as the inspiration seized on me, until at last, in spite of myself, it grew into a wild and indescribable dirge, fading away in long vail of unutterable sadness and regret. When it was over I felt exhausted and unstrung, as though virtue had gone out from me. I had played as 1 had never played before. The young man had turned away and was looking out of the window. The lady on the sofa was transfgured. The languor had altogether left her, and the tears were streaming down her face, to the great detriment of the powder and enamel which composed her complexion.
 She pulled me towards her and kissed me.
 '1t is beautiful-terrible! !" she said {: II have never heard such music in my life. You must stay with me now and have masters. If you can play like that now, without culture and education, in time, when you have been taught, you will be the greatest violinist that ever lived"
 "I will say of Lady Greville that, in spite of her frivolity and affecta- tions, she does love music, at the bot tom of her soul, with the absorbing passion that in my eyes would absolve a person for committing all the sins in the Decalogue. If her heart could be taken out and examined, can fancy it as shield, divided into equal fields. Perhaps, as her friends declare, one of these might bear the device, "Modes ct Confections"; but I am sure that you would see on the other, even more deeply graven, the divine word, "Music."
 She is one of the few persons whose praise of any of my compositions gives me real satisfaction; and almost alone, when everybody is running, in true goose fashion, to hear my piano recitals, she knows and tells me to stick to my true vocation-the violin.
 My dear baron," she said, "why waste your time playing on an instru- ment which is not suited to you, when you have Stradivarius waiting at home for the magic touch?"
 She was right, though it is the fashion to speak of me now as second Rubinstein. There are scores of finer pianists than I, even here in London. But am quite sure-yes, and you are sure, too, oh, my Stradivarius-that in the whole world there is nobody who can make such music out of you as can, no one to whom you tell such stories as you tell to me. Any one who knows could see by merely look ing at my hands that they are violin