A TRAGEDY OF A SONG.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 342, 17 September 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

A TRAGEDY OF A SONG.

The snow sifted in a fine, mist like Death's white robe—through the gaping cracks in the attic. The air was cold—cold—and there was no fire in the room. In one corner was a narrow bed with meagre coverings, and a few necessary articles of furniture were scattered about. Iu another corner stood an upright piano before which a man was seated. Ho was no longer young, but privation and an almost extinguished hope had whitened his hair and given him the appearance of a much older man.

The flame of a candle flickered in the freezing draught. The clocks had struck the midnight hour long before, but the man caved little for arbitrary divisions of time. He shivered with cold, but his long flexible fingers, alive with the selfcreated warmth of genius, played upon the keys nimbly and firmly. Out of the mass of chords, runs and speculative harmonies that his fingers struck from the instrument ran a distinct strain—a notable clearly conceived idea that rose like the song of a lark above the confused chatter of wrangling jays. As he followed his idea and picked out each note, he feverishly wrote it with a srub of a pencil upon a blank music sheet. The eyes of the man were shining like stars. His hair swept back from a noblo brow ; his nostrils fluttered and the hopes that so nearly left him forever crowded back into his soul almost too vehemently for his fragile body's strength. At last the composition was complete, and he played it through boldly and confidently. It was a creation. It had come upon him as an inspiration after years of patient labouring at this art. Until now he been a follower —an adaption—slave to convention. In one hour he had overleaped the barrier of the commonplace against which he had for so long unnvailingly beaten and had given the world a new melody —a creation that meant fame and perhaps fortune. lie was too thorough a musician not to know its value. There had never been anything like it in music. It was bis, and the world would recognize him at last. It was a song he had written, and every note of it was original, new, and alive with genius. There was a smile on the man's wan face as he rose from the piano. He unrolled a paper from which he took some bread and cheese and devoured it ravenously. He placed his precious manuscript of his song under his pillow, blew out the spluttering candle, and crept under the thin cower 3of his bed. He felt the fine snow c'.rifb occasionally across his face, but in the darkness he still smiled.

Poverty and hunger, and unappreciation, and weary waiting had been his, but an end was coming to all that. He had conquered at last. . # # . * * •*

The musician awoke early and sprang from his bed. He shivered in the colder morning air, but there was hope in his eyes and an unwonted energy in his movements. He could s6arcely wait for the hour when he could see those autocrats of the music world—bis publishers. He knew the worth of the song he had made, and he knew that his struggles were over as far as bodily or) * want was concerned.

' One tbing is sure,' he muttered, 'it is absolutely and entirely original. The air and treatment have never before been used even in the remotest manner.

The house was a big tenement one, and outside on the stairs many people were tramping down, even at that early hour. Presently all was still, and someone came up the stairs whistling loudly. The musical! heard it and clutched the table with hands that suddenly trembled, and his face went as white as the snow that drifted about him. It was was his song that the man whistled —the same air, the same delicate, fanciful changes—the same odd intricate passages over which he had spent such care—the same lifting, rippling refrain. He had thought it new—thought himself a creator —imagined he had brought some thing into the world, and here it was whistled in the streets and in tenement houses—old, old, perhaps as—

The musican loosened his hold on the table, and fell, lying quite still in a little drift of snow.

The first ones to enter the room were two of the house's lodgers who had known the musician slightly. ' Frozen,' said one of them as they lifted him to the bed.

' Starved more likely,' said the other, ' and yet I wonder why. A man who had the genius he did ought to have been a success. Only last, night from my room above, I heard him go to his piano and compose a song that was a dandy, and would have sold like hot cakes. I've been trying to whistle it all the morning.'