"I had not played three seconds," he says,
"before a profound silence reigned among the people, seeing which,
and dreaming wildly, and feeling somehow in an eerie and elfish,
and half-uncanny mood, I flew off into all manner of trills, and laments,
and cadenza-monstrosities for a long time, but finally floated down
into `La Melancolie', which melted itself forth with such eloquent lamenting
that it almost brought my tears -- and, to make a long story short,
when I allowed the last note to die, a simultaneous cry of pleasure
broke forth from men and women that almost amounted to a shout."*
Two weeks later he wrote: "I have writ the most beautiful piece,
`Field-larks and Blackbirds', wherein I have mirrored
Mr. Field-lark's pretty eloquence so that I doubt he would know the difference
betwixt the flute and his own voice."**
--
* `Letters', p. 73.
** `Letters', p. 47.
--
Inspired by the sympathy of people in whose judgment he had confidence,
and impelled by his own genius asserting itself, and realizing that
his hold upon life was but slight, he went from San Antonio in April, 1873,
with the fixed purpose to give the remainder of his life to music and poetry.
The resolution is all the more significant when it is remembered
that the year 1873 was one of financial distress, especially in the South.
"It was then," says Joel Chandler Harris, "that the effects of war and waste
were fully felt, and then that the stoutest heart was tried,
labor was restless and hard to control, the planter was out of funds
and interest was high, .
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