The Little Violinist | Page 3

a nature as not to be visible

to the naked eye. I doubt if the dramatist himself could have explained
it, even if he had been so condescending as to attempt to do so. There
was a bold young prince--Prince Rupert, of course--who went into
Wonderland in search of adventures. He reached Wonderland by
leaping from the castle of Drachenfels into the Rhine. Then there was
one Snaps, the prince's valet, who did not in the least want to go, but
went, and got terribly frightened by the Green Demons of the
Chrysolite Cavern, which made us all laugh--it being such a pleasant
thing to see somebody else scared nearly to death. Then there were
knights in brave tin armor, and armies of fair pre-Raphaelite amazons
in all the colors of the rainbow, and troops of unhappy slave-girls, who
did nothing but smile and wear beautiful dresses, and dance continually
to the most delightful music. Now you were in an enchanted castle on
the banks of the Rhine, and now you were in a cave of amethysts and
diamonds at the bottom of the river--scene following scene with such
bewildering rapidity that finally you did not quite know where you
were.
But what interested me most, and what pleased Charley and Talbot
even beyond the Naiad Queen herself, was the little violinist who came
to the German Court, and played before Prince Rupert and his bride.
It was such a little fellow! He was not more than a year older than my
own boys, and not much taller. He had a very sweet, sensitive face,
with large gray eyes, in which there was a deep-settled expression that I
do not like to see in a child. Looking at his eyes alone, you would have
said he was sixteen or seventeen, and he was merely a baby!
I do not know enough of music to assert that he had wonderful genius,
or any genius at all; but it seemed to me he played charmingly, and
with the touch of a natural musician.
At the end of his piece, he was lifted over the foot-lights of the stage
into the orchestra, where, with the conductor's bâton in his hand, he
directed the band in playing one or two difficult compositions. In this
he evinced a carefully trained ear and a perfect understanding of the
music.

I wanted to hear the little violin again; but as he made his bow to the
audience and ran off, it was with a half-wearied air, and I did not join
with my neighbors in calling him back. "There 's another performance
to-night," I reflected, "and the little fellow is n't very strong." He came
out, however, and bowed, but did not play again.
All the way home from the theatre my children were full of the little
violinist, and as they went along, chattering and frolicking in front of
me, and getting under my feet like a couple of young spaniels (they did
not look unlike two small brown spaniels, with their fur-trimmed
overcoats and sealskin caps and ear-lappets), I could not help thinking
how different the poor little musician's lot was from theirs.
He was only six years and a half old, and had been before the public
nearly three years. What hours of toil and weariness he must have been
passing through at the very time when my little ones were being rocked
and petted and shielded from every ungentle wind that blows! And
what an existence was his now--travelling from city to city, practising
at every spare moment, and performing night after night in some close
theatre or concert-room when he should be drinking in that deep,
refreshing slumber which childhood needs! However much he was
loved by those who had charge of him, and they must have treated him
kindly, it was a hard life for the child.
He ought to have been turned out into the sunshine; that pretty
violin--one can easily understand that he was fond of it himself--ought
to have been taken away from him, and a kite-string placed in his hand
instead. If God had set the germ of a great musician or a great
composer in that slight body, surely it would have been wise to let the
precious gift ripen and flower in its own good season.
This is what I thought, walking home In the amber glow of the wintry
sunset; but my boys saw only the bright side of the tapestry, and would
have liked nothing better than to change places with little James
Speaight. To stand in the midst of Fairyland, and play beautiful tunes
on a toy fiddle, while all the people clapped their hands--what could
quite equal that? Charley began to think it was no such grand thing to
be a circus-rider, and