A Piece of Good Advice

1895

A dear, pretty old lady once said to me, when I, with the sublime uncharitableness which youth considers divine humor, had been ridiculing some one's personal appearance: "My dear, never quiz people for what they can't help. That's their Creator's affair — not yours. Be as down on them as you like for what they can help, but always draw the line there and make it a rule through life." We can't shape our noses as we can our lives, and really I think, considering the mess that some of us make of the latter, it is perhaps just as well. We can't model our cheeks as we can our waists, and that is decidedly a pity, for so long as men admire small waists so long shall we dutifully seek to attain them, by fair means or foul. I suppose we can make our faces innocent or wicked, and that is unfortunate, for the innocent often like to wear wicked masks, and the wicked oftener contrive angel faces. Ah, well!" — Philadelphia Times.


Girls With Voices

Mme. Marchesi, who is the famous teacher of many famous singers, among them Sibyl Sanderson, gives a bit of advice to English and American girls with voices. "No girl," says she, "who would become a singer must neglect to know one other language besides her own. If her ear and tongue have never been trained to hear or pronounce anything but her native English, she will have a hard time of it. It does not matter which language it is — French, German, Spanish, Italian — any one will do. It is the premier pas qui coute. When one is learned, others will come easily enough afterward." This skillful instructor counts two years as the minimum in which to perfect a singer, three years being preferable.

The Lullaby

1895

There can be no doubt that if the lullaby was not in advance of the war song it was at least contemporaneous with it. Mr. Mason tells of the low, sweet chant of the Zuni mother and her quaint baby songs. In making their bread he mentions the imitative power of the native women, who sing notes and words which are made to sound like their hand stones working in the mealing stones. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch.


Wished He Were A Dog

Burger, author of the "Wild Huntsman," fell in love with his wife's sister and married her after his wife had died of a broken heart. He soon discarded her for new favorite, who proved to be such a Tartar that Burger said, "I wish I had been born a dog."


Long River

The Atchalafaya river, in Louisiana, was so named from two Indian words meaning Long river.

Jenny Lind's Great Triumph

1906

Won Jealous Rival by Sweetness of Simple Song

A beautiful little incident is told concerning Jenny Lind and Grisi, when they were rivals for popular favor in London. Both were invited to sing the same night at a court concert before the queen. Jenny Lind, being the younger, sang first, and was so disturbed by the fierce, scornful look of Grisi that she was at the point of failure, when suddenly an inspiration came to her. The accompanist was striking his final chords. She asked him to rise and took the vacant seat. Her fingers wandered over the keys in a loving prelude, and then she sang a little prayer which she had loved as a child. She hadn't sung it for years. As she sang she was no longer in the presence of royalty, but singing to loving friends in her fatherland.

Softly at first the plaintive notes floated on the air, swelling louder and richer every moment. The singer seemed to throw her whole soul into that weird, thrilling, plaintive "prayer." Gradually the song died away and ended in a sob. There was silence — the silence of admiring wonder. The audience sat spell-bound. Jenny Lind lifted her sweet eyes to look into the scornful face that had so disconcerted her. There was no fierce expression now; instead, a tear-drop glistened on the long, black lashes, and after a moment, with the impulsiveness of a child of the tropics, Grisi crossed to Jenny Lind's side, placed her arms about her, and kissed her, utterly regardless of the audience. — Exchange.

Comment: Maybe they ought to try that on American Idol. But you could say, 'Isn't it just like Grisi, stealing Jenny's moment and drawing attention to herself after such a tender moment?!' (The sentiment of this article is kind of sickening.)

Whittier's Dog

1901

During one of the last birthday celebrations of the poet Whittier he was visited by a celebrated oratorio singer. The lady was asked to sing, and, seating herself at the piano, she began the beautiful ballad, "Robin Adair." She had hardly begun before Mr. Whittier's pet dog came into the room and, seating himself by her side, watched her as if fascinated and listened with a delight unusual in an animal. When she finished, he came and put his paw very gravely into her hand and licked her check.

"Robin takes that us a tribute to himself," said Mr. Whittier. "He also is 'Robin Adair.' "

The dog, hearing his own name, evidently considered that he was the hero of the song. From that moment, during the lady's visit, he was her devoted attendant. He kept by her side when she was indoors and accompanied her when she went to walk. When she went away he carried her satchel in his mouth to the gate and watched her departure with every evidence of distress. — St. Nicholas.

He Offers Free Insanity Certificate

1900

A generous if not alluring offer was that made by an exasperated physician to the penurious father of an insane young man.

The old man wished to secure his son's admission to the insane asylum, but seemed unwilling to pay for the necessary certificate.

After hearing his plea of poverty — which the doctor knew to be false — and hearing him also tell of the many expenses to which he had been put by his ungrateful children, the physician waved his hand to end the recital.

"Now see here," he said, sharply, "you just pay me for this one, and I'll give you a certificate for yourself whenever you wish to use it, for nothing!"


An Effort To Explain

A gentleman who had engaged an intelligent French maid was at work in his library at one end of his house, when it struck him, from certain sounds, that something must be wrong in the drawing-room, at the other end of the house. So he rang his bell, and the maid came.

"What are those cries that I seem to hear in the direction of the drawing-room, Marie?" he asked.

"I do not precisely know, monsieur," she answered. "At one time I sink it is madame who sing, and at anozzer time I am sure it is ze cat and ze dog who fight, monsieur!" — Youth's Companion.

Girls Travel On "Nerve"

Oct. 1910

Two Oklahoma Young Women Start Out Without Money on a Three-Years' Trip

Chicago. — "We are going around the world on our own endeavors and nerve for educational purposes and to see if two women can work their way in such an undertaking," said Miss Olive Adair and Miss Oralee List, two young women from Tulsa, Okla., who arrived at the Congress hotel, Chicago, from St. Louis, on the first part of their long journey.

They wore broad white satin sashes, with the words, in black letters, "Around-the-World Girls From Tulsa, Oklahoma," and their suitcases and traveling bags were decorated in similar manner. They wore light tan traveling gowns and black turbans. "We are going to make a tour of the world," they said, "and will earn our passage."

Miss List is a composer of music, and Miss Adair is a singer and a writer of short stories. "We started without one cent of money, earning our fare to Kansas City by singing on the streets and selling papers."

The Lullaby Song Mother Used To Sing

1911

The Lullaby Song

Some time ago a western contemporary gave utterance to this practical, prosaic and unemotional declaration: "Another very pretty sentiment that should be exploded is the lullaby song. Did your mother rock you to sleep and sing while doing it, and you recall the song? As a rule, a woman has so many children they are hustled off to bed without being rocked, and what mother ever knew a lullaby from start to finish?"

There are some things that are too sacred for alleged humor or wit and the above is an instance in point, as there are many who will not accept it as either, for as observed by an exchange there are those whose years have exiled them to dreamland, who can call up tender recollections of childhood and remember the songs that mother used to sing.

There are plenty of old men living who had mothers who could sing in low, tender, though uncultivated, tones the lullaby song, and its melody is still enshrined in the heart and thrills in memory. The old man of German stock especially can remember the simple folk song of the Fatherland that his mother sang above his cradle. Long ago its music came from over the sea, and at last has incorporated in the runic rhymes the old colored nurse crooned or warbled to woo sleep to infantile eyelids.

It may be that in later years we have been privileged to hear the great voices of the day. But all their grand arias never so touched our hearts as when in an encore they gave us a melody that had been dedicated to babyland and which thousands of mothers had sung to the cradle's rocker beating time.

It is strange what a hold these simple melodies of childhood retain in a life, however long, however filled with changes and vicissitude. There is something in their joys though they be ever so fleeting, that remains indelible. Every now and then, in quiet hours, the heart will hark back over the intervening years and remember it with reverence. And who will say that we are not better men and women for such moments of reflection, even though they do bring back the sound of voices that have long been silent, and the touch of hands that are dust?

And can you recall the song? Of course! You hear the familiar notes again in the midst of other surroundings, and instantly the scene is changed about you. You are a child again, just for a moment, and you look up, as you did in days gone by, into a face you love — oh, it may be aged and wrinkled and homely now, but it's still to you the sweetest face in the world.

You look again into eyes that are eloquent with a mother's unspeakable love — the purest, sweetest, holiest feeling the human heart may know. You feel again the comforting presence of her who guided your first uncertain footsteps, who heard you lisp your first little words, and whose tender solicitude for you has never ceased in all these years.

Can you recall the song? A generation may have passed since you heard it. Perhaps, in the corner of some quiet churchyard the singer lies asleep. Years and experience may have come upon you since you heard it last from her dear lips. Scenes may have changed, and your feet have wandered far since then; but never, never have you forgotten.

Life has brought you discords, but they can't erase it. After it may have come the other songs of other days. but the echo of those earlier ones is with you always. Childhood can never die.

No, do not tell us that the lullabies have gone out of fashion, after all these ages in which they have been sung over cradle and couch, in hovel and palace, and been remembered by millions in whose hearts remained an echo and a light of other days. The childhood that never heard a mother's lullaby is not apt to have a manhood of wholesome sentiment or that reverence for womankind which ennobles the heart and uplifts the soul.

—The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, Feb. 28, 1911, p. 6.

Babies Now Getting Lullabies by Radio, Not Mother

Baby Florence Jackson listening in on a bedtime story.

New York, 1922

NEW RADIOPHONE LULLABY SUPPLANTS OLD SONGS OF MOTHER AT TWILIGHT

The romance of your baby days will soon fade from the babe of tomorrow. For no longer need mother croon or rock her babe to sleep, or even whisper the story of the sandman. All she will do will be to "cut in" and let babe go to sleep to the tune of a radio lullaby or bedtime story. Florence Jackson now gets her twilight lullaby in New York by radio.

—The Chronicle Telegram, Elyria, Ohio, April 13, 1922, p. 8.

The Talking Phonograph

1878

Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, says the Scientific American, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night. These remarks were not only perfectly audible to ourselves, but to a dozen or more persons gathered around, and they were produced by the aid of no other mechanism than the simple little contrivance mentioned.

No matter how familiar a person may be with modern machinery and its wonderful performance, or how clear in his mind the principle underlying this strange device may be, it is impossible to listen to the mechanical speech without his experiencing the idea that his senses are deceiving him. We have heard other talking machines. The Faber apparatus for example is a large affair as big as a parlor organ. It has a key board, rubber larynx and lips, and an immense amount of ingenious mechanism which combines to produce something like articulation in a single monotonous organ note. But here is a little affair of a few pieces of metal, set up roughly on an iron stand about a foot square, that talks in such a way, that, even in its present imperfect form many words are not clearly distinguishable, there can be no doubt but that the inflections are those of nothing else than the human voice.

We have already pointed out the startling possibility of the voices of the dead being reheard through this device, and there is no doubt but that its capabilities are fully equal to other results just as astonishing. When it becomes possible as it doubtless will, to magnify the sound, the voices of such singers as Parepa and Titiens will not die with them, but will remain as long as the metal in which they may be embodied will last. The witness in court will find his own testimony repeated by machine so that it will be reproduced in a way that will leave no question as to his devising capacity or sanity. It is really possible by ingenious optical contrivances to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience. Add the talking phonograph to counterfeit their voices, and it would be difficult to carry the illusion of real presence much further.

Musicians of the Street — Picturesque New York Figures

1887

MUSICIANS OF THE STREET.

The Picturesque Figures Who Make Melody on the Sidewalk.

[Special Correspondence.]

NEW YORK, Nov. 15. — Street musicians in New York are not limited to the hand organ. Every portable instrument under the sun stops at times and tunes up under your windows. Yesterday two men, one with a bagpipe, the other with a pibroch, went through my street making music weird, wild and pathetically sweet. Here and there a nickel was thrown to them from the upper stories, and here and there fell a tear. The concert was musical. They had not the hackneyed, manners of hardened street musicians. Solicitation was new to them. But they woke the echoes with old Scottish airs that moved hearts and moistened eyes.

If one might judge of them and their history, one might say that they were Scotchmen, stranded in New York without money and took this simple plan of earning a little. Sometimes a man stops on a corner after nightfall and sings a song, not in the cracked and dreadful voice of the blind professional street singer, but in sweet and melodious notes. One by one the passing people halt to hear him, and a few remember to pay for the pleasure he has given. He is perhaps of higher station, and temporarily in distress, Possibly he does it for a lark, for the pleasure of giving pleasure to those whose pleasures are few.

Sometimes a very old man, dignified and patriarchal, plays upon a large clarionet, making such music as the souls of musicians love. It is evident that in this humble guise a master breathes upon the instrument. That he has descended from some height of talent, and perhaps fame, is evident. His garments, too, have come down. When he trembles during the pauses in his music his hearers feel their throats thicken and somehow their hands find their way to their pockets. The throng about him increases all the time. His selections are not the much harped upon airs from the popular operas; they are the classic airs of the past. And when he was applauded the pale, old face flushed up with pleasure, and he acknowledged the compliment with the grace of an artist.

Histories, forsooth, have the street musicians. They have lived romances and supped on tragedies. Poverty walks on one side of them and art on the other. The way has been long and up hill all the way, with here and there a light, a halt and a bit of joy. They suggest blind Homer. They do more. They keep our hearts tender. — G. G.

A Prima Donna's Triumph

1878

Patti had a stirring time of it at Naples. When she arrived they declined to receive her at the Hotel Royal, and she had to go to the Nobile.

She was in high dudgeon, refused to rehearse, and in consequence found an audience as cold as stone. In less than an hour she sang the whole house into warmth, enthusiasm, frantic delight — it was the "Traviata" — and the next morning the papers made positive excuses. Nay more, the committee of the theater came to pay her the unusual honor of a visit in state. She refused to see them.

Expectation was on tiptoe as to her reception the next night. It was feared she would be hissed. Not at all. She sang the "Barbier," and with the same effect as before, her voice acting on their premeditated sulkiness like the rising sun on mists. In the scene in which she has to spell the name of Rosina she kept one high note so long that the unhappy baritone who accompanied her — and not a bad one either — had to stop three times for breath, she mocking him with a look the while.

Naples gave up all idea of resistance and took up its old position at her feet. She received $1,900 a night, with a right to half the surplus when the receipts exceed $3,900. On the night of the "Barbier" they took $5,700 at the doors; she therefore received an extra $950, or a total of about $2,850 for the night's work, not counting her bonus of revenge!

Local Man, A. H. Milner, Sings in Many Operas in Germany

Wisconsin, 1921

SINGS IN MANY OPERAS

Dr. A. H. Milner, Now Visiting in This City

BUSY YEAR IN BERLIN

Finds Student Life in Germany Means Plenty of Work and Constant Self-Denial

If anyone thinks the life of musician is one long dream of pleasure, he would better try studying music in Germany.

This is the opinion, expressed with great emphasis, by Dr. Augustus H. Milner, who has just returned from a year's work in Berlin, under the instruction of Madam Schoen-Rene.

The life of a student who has real ambitions and looks forward to a career of serious work in art, means constant labor, incessant self-denial, moderate living in all ways, according to Dr. Milner.

"If you want to do society singing, that is another matter," says Dr. Milner, with a German shrug. "But if you want to be a real musician—" And then he recounted some of the many qualities that are necessary for a musician, besides the ownership of a voice. You must be first of all really musical in character and have that something that we call temperament. You must have the capacity for work and more work. You must be able to keep at it even when you feel that it isn't any use. You must be able to give up all dissipations and most pleasures, to eat and sleep in such manner and degree as will keep your physical condition at its best. In a word you must be able always to put your music first and everything else second.

Dr. Milner has been having excellent success in this his first year's work abroad. He thinks himself the luckiest of men to have become a pupil of Schoen-Rene, who he says is considered the greatest vocal teacher in the world. Madam Schoen-Rene was a pupil of Manual Garcia, the greatest vocal teacher who ever lived, who had pupils when he was 98 years old and who lived to be 102. Schoen-Rene was at first an interpreter of music and seemed destined to a great career, when she became ill. She came to Minneapolis to visit a sister and, incidentally, to die. Being disappointed in this, she took pupils, among them "Gus" Milner, then studying medicine. When her health was restored she returned to Berlin. Dr. Milner, for he had by that time secured his degree, followed her to Berlin and has been under her instruction ever since.

"Musical affairs are managed this way in Germany," said Dr. Milner. "Every city has a court theatre, under the patronage of a royal duke or some other dignitary. These theatres each have what we call stock companies attached to them, accomplished singers who give every winter a repertory of opera.

"At the head of the system is a gentleman, known as the Hofrath, or court adviser, before whom all persons desiring to sing in the court theatres must present themselves. This official, Carl Harder, is necessarily the dictator in musical affairs.

"When you sing before him and satisfy him that you have musical possibilities, he will provide that you receive an invitation to sing in some of the court theatres. These so-called 'guest performances' mean that the new singer is the guest. He must have prepared his roles and will be given a chance to sing one of them in the regular company attached to the theatre. If, in several guest performances, he makes good he may be engaged as a member of the company and thereafter his career lies ahead of him."

Dr. Milner sang in several guest performances during the past winter, one of his appearances at Prague having been noticed in the columns of this paper. He will sing at other guest performances next winter. That he has been busy during the summer is indicated by the fact that he is now prepared to sing in fourteen operas, and in some of them has committed two roles. He has also changed his voice from a bass to a baritone, on the advice of Mr. Harder.

The list of his operas is as follows: Wagner—Lohengrin and Tannhauser; Beethoven—Fidelio; Weber—Freischutz; Bizet—Carmen; Puccini— Butterfly; Mascagni—Cavalleria; Leoncavallo —Pagliacci; Flotow—Martha; Lortzing—Waffenschmeid; Gounod— Faust; Verdi—Trovatore, Traviata, Masked Ball.

Dr. Milner expects to remain several months in this country and will give a series of concerts at St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago. He will also give a concert in this city before his return.

—The Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, Wisconsin, November 23, 1911, page 1.

Man Posing as Evangelist Dupes Local Residents

1903

SWINDLER AT MARSHALLTOWN

Man Who Posed As Evangelist Duped the Residents Into Buying Soap and Toilet Articles.

Marshalltown, Mar. 2.— A big swindling scheme has been unearthed here. A man who has been here for a month, promoting a manufacturing company for toilet soaps, perfumes, etc., victimized hundreds throughout the country who answered his advertisements, he charging $2 for each application for a position. It is not known to what extent his peculations aggregate. The man posed as a singing evangelist. His whereabouts are unknown.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 3, 1903, page 1.

The Ghost That Sang

1913

I had never seen a ghost, but once in the company of a friend, I heard a ghost sing.

It was in London. I must not mention the house, because to say a house is haunted in London is criminal libel. This house was haunted. I knew it was haunted, but the ghost had never troubled me. It bothered a friend of mine who spent an autumn in the house, by stamping up the stairs in the middle of the night. It troubled my secretary, who used to work alone in the house in the evening sometimes, by opening and shutting the doors. It troubled the police by lighting up the house and giving false alarm of burglars in the middle of the night. It never troubled me. I never saw it. I never felt it never heard it till this once.

It was about 1 o'clock in the morning. I was sitting in my sitting-room with a friend whom I call "X", who is a well-known author. (One generally adds in a ghost story "and who was a hard-headed man of business, utterly skeptical and completely matter of fact," as if that had anything to do with it.) We had just come in and were expecting another friend who lived in the house, and we were sitting up for him. We were talking about Swinburne's verse, and took down the first edition of "Atalanta in Calydon," which I then possessed and which I foolishly sold for a small sum (it was immediately afterward resold at an auction for large sum and went to America and is now in some collector's library), and I read out a passage. As I was reading we heard singing next door. said, "There's Phil," and didn't pay any further attention, as I expected him to come in, and I went on reading.

But the singing continued. It sounded foreign — like Spanish. This didn't surprise us, as Phil was in the habit of singing Provencal songs. The singing went on, and as he didn't come in, we went to meet him and opened the door. The next room was a tiny ante-room opening into another sitting room, and beyond this again was the smallest of bedrooms — not bigger than a cupboard. There was nobody there, but the singing went on; such curious singing, too; strange, alien, faint, tinkly, as if four confused voices were singing the song of an early century; it was unreal and it had a kind of burr in it, as if you were listening to voices on a telephone that is out of order. We walked through the rooms and we walked through the singing, and we heard it behind us still going on; and in the bedroom we found our friend asleep in his bed. Then the singing stopped. Now as we walked through that sitting-room I noticed my friend's hair, in Kipling's phrase, sitting up. I daresay he noticed the name thing about mine, or he would have done so had I any hair to notice. — Maurice Baring in the February Metropolitan.

—Middletown Daily Times-Press, Middletown, New York, February 15, 1913, page 4.