appreciated in this world.

David loved to give play to his fancy, not only upon this violin--he had
a good ear, and had learnt not a little--but also about it: where it
really came from, and how old it might be? He would exceedingly have
liked an indistinct mark inside to mean that it was "possibly a
Cremona"; it was one of his weak points, and this room for conjecture
was evidently, in his eyes, one of the excellences of the violin.

David had a small collection of what he called classical music, long
compositions which he played from the notes. They were not much to my
fancy, and always struck me as being of a piece with what was strange in
his manner when he posed as a logician. When he played them it was more
like severe, mental, school exercise than anything his heart was in; and
he played as correctly as he argued or wrote.

The times when classical music and critical conversations ruled in his
room, were certainly those in which he felt his mind most in balance. He
was less hearty in manner then, even towards me.

But then would come times when the music-stand would remain in the
corner. He would sit for a long time looking straight before him, as if
lost in thought, and then give expression to his feeling, on his violin,
in all kinds of fantasies, which pleased my uncultivated ear far more
than his so-called classical music.

He sometimes played a variety of small pieces, and then gradually sank
into his own peculiar minor strain, and sometimes into a wonderfully sad
melody. I very seldom heard him play anything right through, and then
always in a kind of self-forgetfulness. At such times, I had a feeling
that he was confiding to me something beautiful that he had lost, and
over which he could never cease to mourn.

At a later period of our friendship he became, as I have said, more
irregular in his habits, and was seldom to be found at home; he would
sometimes talk ironically about his comrades, the professors and things
in general, and his sarcasm was almost biting.

I was privileged to take my friend's key, and go into his room, even
when he was not at home. If his violin hung uncared for, I knew that
something was wrong, and that his own condition answered to that of his
instrument. The first thing he did, when all was right again, was
carefully to put it in order.

But never during those times had I seen his treasure so badly treated
and neglected as when twenty years later, I found it again, dusty