produced.

He made his way to his dingy little room and went to bed.

Very early the next morning there was a loud pounding on his door. It
was Merelli. "How much for your opera?" asked the impresario, pushing
his way into the room.

"Thirty thousand francs," came a voice, loud and clear out of the
bedclothes.

"Don't be a fool," returned Merelli--"why do you ask such a sum!"

"Because you are here at five o'clock in the morning--the price will be
fifty thousand this afternoon."

Ten minutes of parley followed, and then Merelli drew his check for
twenty thousand francs, and Verdi gave his quitclaim, turned over in
bed, and went to sleep again.

* * * * *

The success of "Nabucodonosor" was complete. Its author had his twenty
thousand francs, but Merelli made more than that. From Eighteen Hundred
Forty-two to Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one may be called the First Verdi
Period. A dozen successful operas were produced, and simultaneously at
Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan, Genoa and Florence, Verdi's compositions
were being presented. The master was a businessman, as well as an
artist--the combination is not so unusual as was long believed--and knew
how to get the most for the mintage of his mind. Money fairly flowed his
way.

Verdi married again in Eighteen Hundred Fifty. His life now turns into
what may be called the Second Verdi Period. After this we shall see no
more such curious exhibitions of bad taste as a ballet of forty witches
in "Macbeth," capering nimbly to a syncopated melody, with "Lady
Macbeth" in a needlessly abbreviated skirt singing a drinking-song to an
absent lover. In strenuous efforts to avoid coarseness Verdi may
occasionally give us soft sentimentality, but the change is for the
best.

His mate was a woman of mind as well as heart. She was his intellectual
companion, his friend, his wife. For nearly fifty years they lived
together. Her dust now lies in the "House of Rest," at Milan, a home for
aged artists, founded by Verdi. This "House of Rest" was a
Love-Offering, dedicated to the woman who had given him, without stint,
of the richness of her nature; who had bestowed rest, and peace, and
hope and gentle love. She had no feverish ambitions and petty plans and
schemes for secretly corralling pleasure, power, place, attention, or
selfish admiration. By giving all, she won all. She devoted herself to
this man in whom she had perfect faith, and he had perfect faith