Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-03-29

STUDY OF th1S queer philosopher. One OF
Rants hobbies in the art of taking care of
himself was to avoid garters. He permitted
no ligature to be placed on any part of his
gree the circulation of the blood.
He found it necessary at the same time to
keep up his stockings Accordingly, he had
loops attached to them, and outside each
hip he wore a contrivance that may be
called a box windlass. These affairs some
what rese1nbled an anglers reel with spring,
which secured the line at any given point.
The idea of this grotesque fancy so tickled
De Quincy that he often fingered on the odd
sight it must have been to observe the mas
ter paying out the cable" or hauling in
the slack" by this curious machinery.
DAGANINI had his share of eccentricity.
He feared no one, and when he was
audience nor King could keep him in the
regular orbit. In the reign of Louis Philippe
he agreed to play at a court concert an
nounced at the Tuileries. Just before the
concert he looked at the room. The cur
talns were hung so as to interfere with the
sound, and he asked the superintendent to
have them properly arranged. The official
paid no heed to the request, but so offended
Paganini by his manners that the violinist
determined not to play. The hour of the
concert came; but no Paganini. At last a
messenger was sent to his hotel. The violin
list was there; but he had gone to bed.
Paganini's eccentricity once caused him to
be mobbed at Ferrara. In those DAYS the
common people of the suburbs of that little
town looked upon the dwellers in the town
itself as "a set of asses" Hence any yoke1
of the suburbs, if asked where he came from,
never replied, From Ferrara," but put up
his head and began braying like an ass.
Paganini could initiate with his violin the
braying of an ass as well as do other Won
derful things. In the course of concert at
Ferrara someone in the pit had Kissed. 1t
was an outrage that must be avenged; but
no one suspected anything when, at the close
of the program, Paganini proposed to imi
tate the voices of various animals.
After having reproduced the notes of diff
ferent birds, the mewing of cat, the bark
ing of a dog, and SO on, he advanced to the
who hissedr' initiated in an unrnistakable
manner the braying of a donkey.
The effect was magical but not at all
what the player had probably expected.
The audience, taking the significant "hee-
haw" as an allusion to themselves, rose al
most to man, rushed through the orches-
ira, climbed the stage, and undoubtedly
would have done damage to the daring fd-
dler if he had not taken to flight.
MO genius ever evinced more varied forms
~ of eccentricity than did Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. Among the most amusing of these
may be mentioned his passion for all man.
ner of "beasties," whereof he kept large
number at his London home in Cheyne
Walk. His brother, in his Memoirs" says
that Dante Gabriel had no liking for an ami
NAL on account of its beauty, but that he
preferred rather the quaint, odd, or gro
tesque.
His pets were strangely various. There
were dogs, owls, rabbits, dornice, hedge
hogs, wombats, armadilos, kangaroos, wal
labies, deer, white mouse with her brood,
a racoon, squirrels, mole, a raven, jack
daw, laughing jackasses, parrot, pea
cock, chameleons, green lizards, and Jap
anese salamanders.
Many of these queer little beings came to
a bad end. Punch, the puppy, would get
lost; one or another bird would be drowned;
the dormice would fight and kill one an
other, or eat up their own tails, and gradu-
ally perish. An armadillo was not to be
found, and the story went out that, having
followed its ordinary practice of burrowing,
it turned up under the hearthstone of