Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1896-01-03
MisCellamenMs.
DIMINISHED SEVENTH.

She was the youngest but one of q
family of eight. Physically her life
was and could be nothing but save one
long crucifxion. Crippled and deform-
ed, there stretched behind her record
of suffering, before her the prospect of
greater torture still. Nature had used
her cruelty, for while her puny and mis-
shapen frame inspired ridicule, or at best
shuddering pity, she had been lowered
with capacity for affection that burnt
itself into fercer intensity waiting the
love that never came
Misunderstood she had gradually re-
treated into little world of her own,
with nothing to love. Nothing /? There
was her violin, but that could hardly be
considered apart from Ida's own indi-
viduality. II was her violin that ex-
pressed more eloquently than herself
could ever have done the loneliness and
the lovelessness of her life. How many
heart conceived tragedies had throbbed
harmlessly away upon its vibrating
strings How many deliirous day dreams
had CROPPED their way from her inner con-
seriousness into exhilarating life through
that medium which faithfully inter-
preted all her varying moods!
1T speaks for me-" she once con-
fessed to the doctor, who understood her
better than any one else "What other
people tell they can explain in words,
but l seem to have no power of ex-
preston except through the violin"
Dr. Marshall was silent for moment;
then he asked presently, "Did you ever
hear my boy Austin play!"
Ida shook her head She had heard
no one. Her morbid consciousness of
infrmities prevented her from attending
any public concert, and Austin Marshall,
as she knew, was professional violinist
Of repute.
'You ought to hear him. They toll
me his execution is remarkably good,
and. besides, geniuses like you two
ought to know each other I'll tell
you what I'll do" he added kindly,
an bring him round one evening TO
see you, if you like, when he isn't busy"
Not many days elapsed ere the doctor
kept bis promise, and Austin Marshall,
tall and strong, hold the small, wasted
hand of the diminutive musician, and
wondered the while how the perfect soul
his father described had managed to find
itself in that misshapen little body.
And later on, when Ida had completely
astounded him with her rendering of
Dvorak's Romance-wild, intense and
heart breaking--he told himself that
such thing was monstrous. Here was
an untutored genius, beside whom him
self would pale into comparative insig-
niicance, doomed by nature to perpetual
solitude, while, Orpheus-like, she sought
by her music to charm into life the rocks
and trees.
"You want some lessons to correct
few technical errors" he said at last,
"and then you ought to DO able to hold
your own at Queens Hall or St. James
with the best of them. If | could be-
lieve ia the TRANSPORTATION of souls |
would swear the lost soul of some re-
pentent sinner is imprisoned in your
violin"
He spoke with the generous enthu-
siasm of genius mere talent is spariDg
Of praise and begrudges success.
II can never play in public" she an
swered briefly, with painful flush that
testified to her sensitive recognition of
physical defects.
"Ida on public platform Why,
they'd never see her!" interpolated a
jovial elder brother, with the brutal
candor admiring friends had sometimes
mistaken for frank geniality. "We call
her the Diminished Seventh" he added,
with conscious smile that betrayed the
originator Of the questionable pleasantly.
Poor Diminished Seventh She WINGED
as from blow, and Austin, with the in
tention of covering her confusion, OBJ
served with ready tact:
81 suppose because the minor bar
monies are most perfect and least un-
derstOod."
The retort was so sudden and 50 un-
expected that for once the wag Of the
family was left speechless, and not quite
certain whether some disguised slur on
himself had not been subtly introduced
while Ida. feeling vaguel y that those few
words had sealed compact of eternal
friendship between Austin Marshall and
herself took up the violin again and