The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1898-02-05
For thou art fair, dear 10Y.
and at thy birth
Nature and Fortune joined
to make thee great"

Pittsburg, for it was the week of Ethel!
bert Nevin's homecoming. There ID
nothing quite SO irspiringIy festive Of
that night-be!ore- Christmas air of ex.
peciancy which big town puts on to
welcome one OF it's great ores home.
Like everyone else had known Nevin's
Songs ever since was old enough to
diferentiate sounds at all. 20, That
We Two Were Maying" Little Boy
Blue" "rhere, Little Gill, Don't Cry
"Ihe Mill Song Goodnight, Cod
night, Beloved" when All the Land
Was White" LA Vase Brise," who is
there who does not know them? had
also known vaguely that he was an
American. though that seemed rather
impoesibls. But 10 asscc ate him with
P'ttsbuig had never occurred to me.
and when | discovered that he was the
younger brother OF the proprietors of my
own paper, thea l decided that in life it
is tie unexpected which happ- rs and
the impossible which is true.
1t ives with considers BILE smothered
excitement that I went TO hear him at
his first recital at the Carnegie hall. l
had been reading about him all winter
and | was rather afraid the actual arti
Gle might not come up to all that had
been written and said CT him. When
the stage door at last opened, histwo
pupils who had cone down with him to
sing his songs came first, and then there
stepped, or rather sprang. upon the
stage youth scarcely five feet three 10
height. with the slender. sloping shou..
dsrs and shapely hips of a girl, and that
was Ne7ia' Barely two-and thirty in
TACT, with the face of boy of twenty.
have Fever seen a face that mirrored
every shade OF thought, every fleeing
mood go quickly and wildly, and have
never seen face SO exuberantly glo:i.
ously young. The shepherd boys VITO
piped in the Vale Of Tempe centuries
a2ooe might have looked like that, or
Vrgils Mensc.as, when he left his flock
oeneaih the spreading beech tree ard
'ame Joyous to the coatest OF Song. It
> not that his face IS cone!y, far from
:: it is the youth and joy Of him, the
yric soul tat shines through. But
iele, l will quote what a great man has
aid OF him. critic and a man OF re. ,
erve:
i know OF no man whose face is so
ruIy mat OF q post-oce who has lived Ii
Arcadis-and walked. too, among the C.
hadows and In the Cloister Of life. He !,
as always reminded me Of the Raphael :
. van Wonders drama-he who car,e
o Sn brightly 10 plead with Lucifer in fl
ne shadows. To me there is always an N
lemeLt OF the miraculous in the man of :,
eDius' IL
de did net turn 10 his piano at once. a
e stood like happy boy pleased at the a.
armth of his reception, smiling and II
owing II old friends in the audience. n
nd 10 truth that audie nee was almost W
family affair. There were strange nee.
le seated here and there in that sect
'mpiny; the Minister in whose choir
lis great man had sung when he uasa
'y, the old man 10 whose apple orchard
had made claadesiine nocturnal Wis W
3. the but;ter of whose big dog he used 81
BE- afraid, the old lady who once tied s.
his leg for him when he tore iton sc
Gust thorn. the teachers and instruct. bi
8 who had pronounced him a dune, sN
I'd painted dark pictures Of his future an
'cause he could lot learn the multi. We
lcation table, they were all there. VI
kr
snail give his rCgral me in full, for u,