you get a man's eyes in your head you'll see what
that did to this harbor!"

I had it now, the cause of all his curious wrath! War had hurt his
harbor! How or why I did not care. Could this harbor of his stand
nothing heroic? Patriotism, religion, love--must they all be shoved
aside to make way for his dull business?

* * * * *

About a year later I was torn for months between two careers. Should I
become a great musician or a famous writer? The idea of writing came to
me first, I got it from "Pendennis," and for a time it took hold so hard
I thought I was nicely settled for life. But then my mother read aloud
"The Lives of Great Musicians," and within a few weeks the piano lessons
which for years I had thought so dull became an absorbing passion. My
mother bought me a photograph of one of the Beethoven portraits, and
around it over my desk I tacked up pictures of famous pianists that I
cut from magazines. I went to concerts in New York. Better still, my
teacher secured me admittance to some orchestra rehearsals, where like a
real professional, all mere amateurs shut out, I could sit in the dark
and listen, and shut my eyes and hold my head between my hands. I was
composing! After a month or two of this feverish life I remember the
pride with which I wrote "Opus 38" over my last composition. My rapidity
was astounding!

But one day my teacher, a kind tactful German, told me that Beethoven,
when he was composing, had not always shut himself up in a room and
scowled with both hands to his head, as in the portrait of him I had,
but had rather gone out into the world.

"The Master found his music," he said, "by listening to the life close
around him."

"He did?" I became uneasy at once, for again I felt myself being pushed
toward that eternal harbor.

"If I were you," my relentless monitor went on, "and desired to become
in music the great voice of my country"--I looked at him quickly but saw
no smile--"I should watch the great ships down there below, I should
listen to them with an artist's ears. They are here from all over the
world, these ships, they are manned by men of all nations. I should
listen to the songs of these men. I have heard," he added reflectively,
"that some of their songs are centuries old. Beethoven gathered only the
folk songs of his country. But you in your city of all nations might
gather the folk songs of all the seas."

I turned quickly. I had been walking t