The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1899-07-15

Half dozen beautiful songs have
come to the world lately daintily pub
lished by the Church company, under
the fancful title, Songs From Vine
acre" They are the words Of that
young American composer who makes
the most beautiful OF songs, Ethebert
Nevin. They were published only this
winter. but they are already known and
sung all over the world, and Bishpam is
singing them in London even now. 1t
is not easy for a man who wrote 20,
That We Two Were Maying," when he
was in the middle OF his teens to i'm
prove on himself, for it means that he
must go very high, but this man has
kept doing it from year to year, and the
Vineacre series OF songs are among
the most exquisite he has written.
With Nevin, this last winter has been
one OF such ceaseless activity. OF such
splendid achievement along go many
lines, that it would seem that he has
grown completely into his greatest self,
and that, so young a monarch, he is
coming into his kingdom, OF which,
since he was twelve years old he has
been heir apparent. To the thousands
OF people who follow this mans work
and progress with an interest almost
personal, it may have occurred to Won
der just where and what Vineacre is,
inc Sc ho ~ potn
from whence these melodies come.
Down the Ohio river some fifteen miles
from Pittsburg 10 Edgeworth. There,
on the green, wooded hills that rise
abruptly from the river, in Vineacre,
the old mansion where Ethelbert Nevin
was born and where he spent his boy
hood, a happy, happy boyhood it WAS,
for there WAS music in the river and in
tho trees and music in the boys heart
and the woods were full OF his singing
feathered brothers and the world was a
good place to live in. 1t was there that
he wrote his :Serenade," and 20. That
We Two Were Maying," aud Doris
and it was there that he wrote "Narcis.
sus," that melody as familiar now as the
worlds oldest classics. that every one of
US seemed to have heard some summer
day in the fi,ids and woods when we
were children, and then lost it again,
until this boy on the banks OF the Ohio
brought it back to us from Already.
But back to Vineacre. 1t is big
. rambling old house that has been fire.
quently added to and rebuilt to conform
to the tastes OF it's occupants. Mr..
Nevin has four brothers, all men OF de-
cided tastes, and they each have ap
. partments to suit their hobbies. In the
center OF the house is the library, the
. big room lined with books from floor tC
ceiling where Robert Nevin, Ethelbert't
:. father, student and man of letters. still
spends his tranquil days in study. II
was in that room that the boy told al
his childish troubles. and it was there
= he went, after brief clerkship with thu
: Pennsylvania railroad company to ash
o his father to release him from his irk-
Q some duties. to let him be poor all his
life and be a musician. God has beer
o good to Ethelbert Nevin from the be gin
r ming, and he has given him other gool
things than genius. Next to getting TIT
right wife, the best fortune which befe
him was in having the right father. HI
g was too fragile and too highly strung
lad to have brooked much opposition
It and an unsympathetic father might
J. have wrecked his boys career at the be