s do thus teach the people and try to lift them up
to something higher and purer. It is this that makes the divine in
music. Happily, our people are willing enough to be taught. The general
education, and our freedom from precedents enables all art to grow
faster here than anywhere else. We are still, as a people, crude and
musically ignorant, but we are fast learning. The changes in the
character of concert music may be seen almost from year to year; the
standard continually advances and, certainly, there is everything to
encourage and satisfy the most ardent lover of music in the country.
While we have such artists as Madam Urso among us we have much to be
thankful for, and may press on till we reach the high standard of
excellence she ever keeps before herself.

We may here offer a short sketch of Madam Urso's personal appearance and
manners, when free from the restraint of public life. The ideas
generally held concerning her "personally" are somewhat incorrect, as
the following will show:

* * * * *

It was a cloudy, winter's afternoon, and the place seemed dull and
gloomy. The Boston Music Hall is, at best, bare and vast, and by
daylight is particularly unattractive. The great organ pipes appear cold
and lustreless, and the light tints on the walls are not very
comforting. The orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association were upon
the stage, under the leadership of Carl Zerrahn, and a few privileged
subscribers, numbering a hundred or two, were gathered together at one
side, as if to keep each other in countenance. Over such a wide floor it
takes a thousand or more to make a comfortable and social company.

The orchestra were at work upon the 6th Symphony of Beethoven, placidly
overcoming its difficulties, stopping now and then to polish up some
delicate point, and taking things in an easy and rather indifferent
manner. In the midst of it entered at the side door a young woman in fur
cape, skull cap of the jauntiest pattern, and some plain dark dress. The
hackman came behind, bearing the great brown leather violin case. With a
serene and placid manner she mounted the stage, and bidding the man
place the violin case on the steps before the organ, she quietly took
off her outer garments and sat down on the steps. A friendly nod and a
smile to Zerrahn and then a cordial hand shake to the librarian of the
Society. She had brought the orchestral parts of the concerto she was
to play, a