The Fifth String | Page 4

a picture in one of our Italian galleries that
always impressed me as the ideal image of maternal happiness. It is a
painting of the Christ-mother standing by the body of the Crucified.
Beauty was still hers, and the dress of grayish hue, nun-like in its
simplicity, seemed more than royal robe. Her face, illumined as with a
light from heaven, seemed inspired with this thought: `They have killed
Him--they have killed my son! Oh, God, I thank Thee that His
suffering is at an end!' And as I gazed at the holy face, an- other light
seemed to change it by degrees from saddened motherhood to
triumphant woman! Then came: `He is not dead, He but sleeps; He will
rise again, for He is the best beloved of the Father!' ''
``Still, fate can rob us of our patrimony,'' she replied, after a pause.
``Not while life is here and eternity beyond,'' he said, reassuringly.
``What if a soul lies dormant and will not arouse?'' she asked.
``There are souls that have no motive low enough for earth, but only
high enough for heaven,'' he said, with evident intention, looking
almost directly at her.
``Then one must come who speaks in nature's tongue,'' she continued.
``And the soul will then awake,'' he added earnestly.
``But is there such a one?'' she asked.
``Perhaps,'' he almost whispered, his thought father to the wish.
``I am afraid not,'' she sighed. ``I studied drawing, worked diligently
and, I hope, intelligently, and yet I was quickly convinced that a
counterfeit presentment of nature was puny and insignificant. I painted

Niagara. My friends praised my effort. I saw Niagara again--I
destroyed the picture.''
``But you must be prepared to accept the limitations of man and his
work,'' said the philosophical violinist
``Annihilation of one's own identity in the moment is possible in
nature's domain--never in man's. The resistless, never-ending rush of
the waters, madly churning, pitilessly dashing against the rocks below;
the mighty roar of the loosened giant; that was Niagara. My picture
seemed but a smear of paint.''
``Still, man has won the admiration of man by his achievements,'' he
said.
``Alas, for me,'' she sighed, ``I have not felt it.''
``Surely you have been stirred by the wonders man has accomplished in
music's realm?'' Diotti ventured.
``I never have been.'' She spoke sadly and reflectively.
``But does not the passion-laden theme of a master, or the marvelous
feeling of a player awaken your emotions?'' persisted he.
She stood leaning lightly against a pillar by the fountain. ``I never hear
a pianist, however great and famous, but I see the little cream-colored
hammers within the piano bobbing up and down like acrobatic
brownies. I never hear the plaudits of the crowd for the artist and watch
him return to bow his thanks, but I mentally demand that these little
acrobats, each resting on an individual pedestal, and weary from his
efforts, shall appear to receive a share of the applause.
``When I listen to a great singer,'' continued this world-defying skeptic,
``trilling like a thrush, scampering over the scales, I see a clumsy lot of
ah, ah, ahs, awkwardly, uncertainly ambling up the gamut, saying,
`were it not for us she could not sing thus--give us our meed of praise.'
''
Slowly he replied: ``Masters have written in wondrous language and
masters have played with wondrous power.''
``And I so long to hear,'' she said, almost plaintively. ``I marvel at the
invention of the composer and the skill of the player, but there I cease.''
He looked at her intently. She was standing before him, not a block of
chiseled ice, but a beautiful, breathing woman. He offered her his arm
and together they made their way to the drawing-room.
``Perhaps, some day, one will come who can sing a song of perfect love

in perfect tones, and your soul will be attuned to his melody.''
``Perhaps--and good-night,'' she softly said, leaving his arm and joining
her friends, who accompanied her to the carriage.

II
The intangible something that places the stamp of popular approval on
one musical enterprise, while another equally artistic and as cleverly
managed languishes in a condition of unendorsed greatness, remains
one of the unsolved mysteries.
When a worker in the vineyard of music or the drama offers his
choicest tokay to the public, that fickle coquette may turn to the more
ordinary and less succulent concord. And the worker and the public
itself know not why.
It is true, Diotti's fame had preceded him, but fame has preceded others
and has not always been proof against financial disaster. All this
preliminary,--and it is but necessary to recall that on the evening of
December the twelfth Diotti made his initial bow in New York, to an
audience that completely filled