to the
lowest Guinea type: with strong appetites and gross bodily health,
except in one particular, which will be mentioned hereafter. In the
every-day apparent intellect, in reason or judgment, he is but one
degree above an idiot,--incapable of comprehending the simplest
conversation on ordinary topics, amused or enraged with trifles such
as would affect a child of three years old. On the other side, his
affections are alive, even vehement, delicate in their instinct as a
dog's or an infant's; he will detect the step of any one dear to him in
a crowd, and burst into tears, if not kindly spoken to.

His memory is so accurate that he can repeat, without the loss of a
syllable, a discourse of fifteen minutes in length, of which he does
not understand a word. Songs, too, in French or German, after a single
hearing, he renders not only literally in words, but in notes, style,
and expression. His voice, however, is discordant, and of small compass.

In music, this boy of twelve years, born blind, utterly ignorant of a
note, ignorant of every phase of so-called musical science, interprets
severely classical composers with a clearness of conception in which
he excels, and a skill in mechanism equal to that of our second-rate
artists. His concerts usually include any themes selected by the
audience from the higher grades of Italian or German opera. His
comprehension of the meaning of music, as a prophetic or historical
voice which few souls utter and fewer understand, is clear and vivid: he
renders it thus, with whatever mastery of the mere material part he may
possess, fingering, dramatic effects, etc.: these are but means to him,
not an end, as with most artists. One could fancy that Tom was never
traitor to the intent or soul of the theme. What God or the Devil meant
to say by this or that harmony, what the soul of one man cried aloud to
another in it, this boy knows, and is to that a faithful witness. His
deaf, uninstructed soul has never been tampered with by art-critics who
know the body well enough of music, but nothing of the living creature
within. The world is full of these vulgar souls that palter with eternal
Nature and the eternal Arts, blind to the Word who dwells among us
therein. Tom, or the daemon in Tom, was not one of them.

With regard to his command of the instrument, two points have been
especially noted by musicians: the unusual frequency of occurrence of
_tours de force_ in his playing, and the scienti