the young virtuoso you were
telling me about?'

"I cast my eyes down bashfully. I felt that I blushed over and over
again.

"Haak mentioned my name, praised my natural talent, and lauded the
rapid progress which I had made in a short time.

"'And so you have chosen the violin as your instrument,' said the
Baron. 'Have you considered, my son, that the violin is the most
difficult of all instruments ever invented, and that it is one which,
whilst it seems, in its extreme simplicity, to comprehend in itself the
most luxuriant richness of music, is, in reality, an extraordinary
mystery, which only discloses itself to a rare few, specially organized
by nature to comprehend it? Do you know of a certainty, does your
spirit tell you with distinctness, that you will be the master of that
marvellous mystery? Many a one has thought this, and has remained a
miserable bungler all his days. I should not wish, my son, that you
should swell the ranks of those wretched creatures. However, at all
events, you can play me something, and then I will tell you what you
are like, what state you are in as regards this matter, and you will
follow my counsel. Perhaps it is with you as it was with Carl Staunitz,
who thought he was going to turn out a marvellous virtuoso. When I
opened his eyes, he threw his fiddle behind the stove, and took to the
Tenor and Viol d'Amour, and a very good job he made of them. On them he
could stamp about with those broad stretching fingers of his, and play
quite fairly well. But, however, just now I want to hear _you_, my
little son.'

"This first somewhat extraordinary speech of the Baron's to me was
calculated to render me somewhat anxious and abashed. What he said went
deep into my soul, and I felt, not without inward sorrow, that in
devoting my life to the most difficult of all instruments I had,
perhaps undertaken a task beyond my powers.

"Just then, four of the artists then present sat down to play the last
three quartettes of Haydn, which had just appeared in print. My master
took his violin out of its case; but scarcely had he passed his bow
over the strings, in tuning, when the Baron, stopping his ears with
both hands, cried out, like a man possessed, 'Haak, Haak, tell me, for
God's sake! how can you annihilate all your skill in playing by making
use of a miserable screaking, caterwauling fiddle like that?'

"Now it happened that my master's violin was one of the most splendid
and glorious ever to