THE OLD VIOLINIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15140, 2 November 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE OLD VIOLINIST.

BY LOUISE EUGENIE PRICK ITT. When I was a child I used sometimes tt visit the family of an old violinist. Tre , member bis appearance well, for his wat a personality not to be forgotten. I re call his thin frame, his stooping shoulders, his bald head fringed with grey hair, his dreamy eyes behind his spectacles, his humorous mouth with its tender, playful smile. He-looked the very embodiment oi music, so that it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that it seemed as if he might be played too like a piece of music. Many an evening it was. his pleasant custom to gather the children together and, taking out his violin, play for us sweet melodies. It pleased him, I think," to watch the varying expressions of wonder and delight that came into our innocent faces. I know that I, for one, wandered far in imagination and seemed to see quite clearly the banks of the Suwannee River, the beauty of Annie Laurie, and the grace of Kathleen Mavourneen. The old violinist was, in my eyes, a kind of magician, and very easily he could make me forget how simple his home was and how poor his faTe; and indeedi whenever I might have remembered his poverty, there was always to be examined his . wonderful collection of curios that would have fitted not inappropriately into a rich man's house. Besides the curios there were rare old prints, yellow with time, and first editions of books 'that he was very fond of showing, while his poor wife sighed at the expense of them; At ' these times lie would say they could all be sold for double their cost to a museum, which was a very satisfactory reply, although, of course, he had no real idea of parting with his treasures. ' ' One afternoon some caller,3 arrived at his house, and he with most winning cor- | diality si-id that they should stay to I supper. Presently, however, his wife called him aside to explain that there was nothing in the house suitable ( for a company tei. It was therefore decided that he should walk into town to procure certain delicacies while his wife and eldest daughter diverted the attention of the visitors. His email daughter and I accompanied him. It was a beautiful late afternoon, and as we walked along in high good spirits, he- told us most eloquently the story of Lohengrin, describing graphically the beauty of a well-known prima donna in the part of the heroine and stopping from time to time to whistle for us certain of tho airs from the opera. Meanwhile the golden afternoon declined into dusk I

thrbugh the rosy changes of sunset until all" this natural beauty about 'us seemed to me part of the setting of Lohengrin, and does indeed to this day. In the town we stopped at a music store and bought some of the music of the opera that he might play it in the evening. Then we walked home in the pale beauty of the early starlight only to remember on the threshold that the real errands had not

been, attended f o. : How tried with him his wife and eldest daughter were and yet r when at last wo all sat down to the ordinary unembelliahed tea, I never knew a gajrer repast more replete with , the spirit of hospitality, and afterwards what a treat, it was to listen to Lohengrin and fancy tho brilliant costumes and scenes as he had depicted them to us.. . His wife, I should judge now, was an excellent, housekeeper and managed the ' affairs of the family most thriftily, although I admit that at that time she, seemed to me much the least interesting member of the household. Now I am doing her but a tardy justice in admiring her. generalship, which I feel sure must have been of no mean order. If a ' cricket chirped in tha house, she was eager in its chase, because, as she anxiously explained, they destroyed the carpets, and it was very expensive to buy new ones, and "where indeed would the money come from;" but my friend would say mildly, "Let him stay. He's a little brother of mine, and why should he not share my house This reminds me of a queer charm the old man used to wear on his

I watchchain, and which I admired vary much. It was a golden cricket, very perfectly formed, as if it once had been alive and had • been turned to gold perhaps by Midae's touch. I used to like to think that this was actually the case, and always when I looked at it, the story of King Midas and his fair young daughter seemed not such an improbable tale after all. I asked my friend one day to tell me about the charm while I turned it over covetously in my hand, for he had tnhooked it from his chain : that I might examine it the better. How strange, I thought, that an bid man should have what was eo fascinatingly like a child's toy. In response to my question he took up a book and showed me one of A. B. Frost's wash drawings illustrating the fable of the ant and the cricket. The ant was represented by a portly negro on a bleak winter's day going toward his cabin from whose chimney tho cheerful emoke was curling. Over one arm the negro carried a market basket out of which protruded turkey legs, carrots, and other substantial viands. The cricket, a thin coloured man. poorly dressed, with a violin under his arm, was timidly accosting him; but it was quite plainly to be seen on the face of the first that "We ants never borrow, we ante never lend."

■ "This: is supposed to be a lesson against improvidence," said my friend with a touch of bitterness, "but in my opinion it is a more forcible sermon against stinginess and lack bf appreciation. The ant refuses his hospitality to the cricket not only because he is uncharitable, but because he is too stupid to recognise a money value in the cricket's cheerful chirp. The ant? amass money in all sorts of practical ways, and then forget it is not the end of life. The crickets, that is musicians, artists, authors, poets, create beauty and often starve in the process because the ants cannot bo persuaded to buy it, unless it is the fashion or l for some like foolish reason. That watch charm you hold in your hand." he continued, "I've worn ever since I was a young man, when I put it on as the badge of a- musical society I joined. We wore it as a symbol that we would prefer a thousand times to be noor crickets out-at-elbows and poorly fed, Jf needs be, than inartistic ants with no souls above their stomachs. . Wo declared we would all of us 'Rather die for . beauty Than live for bread.' " With what scorn he spoke, quite different from his usual gentle tone of voice. I hardly comprehended him, and yet from that moment my hot partisanship was enlisted for him and his brother crickets, and it is only in maturer years that it has occurred to mo that there is something to be said on the ant's side of Che question even as there is for the vegetable garden in opposition to the flower garden. Although in times of plenty we may lavish i.ll our praises upon the flowers, yet in the event of_ a famine the unromantic onion would triumph easily over the rose, queen of the flowers though she is. This I say, albeit the love and admiration for my old friend remain undiminished in my heart; but I remember how his wife used to sigh, and I feel pretty sure that she was an ant —a poor relation perhaps of that rich tribe— Fats as a practical joke had married to a cricket," placing her thereby in a bewildering dilemma between the exalted but somewhat impracticable vision of her husband and the ancient traditions and prudent maxims of her family. ' .

It, is stated in a volume of the census report just issued tha« if the total population of England and Wales at the last census, 36,070,492, was distributed at equal intervals over the whole' surface of the country, a distance of 76 yards would separate each individual from his nearest neighbour. In 1901 this interval was 80 yards*, in 1891 85 yards, in 1881 90 yards, and in 1871 96 yards, Jo 1801 it was 155 yard*,.