the master good, and the
correspondents wrote, "We will look anxiously for his next." They
thought the stream had started and there would be an overflow.

But they were mistaken. Sixteen years of quiet farming followed. Verdi
was more interested in his flowers than his music, and told Philip Hale,
who made a pious pilgrimage to Busseto in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-three,
that he loved his horses more than all the prima donnas on earth.

But in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-seven, the artistic and music-loving
world was surprised and delighted with "Otello." This grand performance
made amends for the mangling of "Macbeth." James Huneker says: "The
character-drawing in 'Otello' is done with the burin of a master; the
plot moves in processional splendor; the musical psychology is subtle
and inevitable. At last the genius of Verdi has flowered. The work is
consummate and complete."

"Falstaff" came next, written by a graybeard of eighty as if just to
prove that the heart does not grow old. It is the work of an
octogenarian who loved life and had seen the world of show and sense
from every side. Old men usually moralize and live in the past--not so
here. The play flows with a laughing, joyous, rippling quality that
disarmed the critics and they apologized for what they had said about
Wagnerian motives. There were no sad, solemn, recurring themes in the
full-ripened fruit of Verdi's genius. When he died, at the age of
eighty-seven, the curtain fell on the career of a great and potent
personality--the one unique singer of the Nineteenth Century.

[Illustration: WOLFGANG MOZART]

WOLFGANG MOZART

Mozart composed nine hundred twenty-two pieces of which we know. He
is considered the greatest composer the world has ever seen, judged
by the versatility and power of his genius. In every kind of
composition he was equally excellent. Beside being a great composer
he was a great performer, being the most accomplished pianist of
his day. He was also an excellent player on the violin.

--_Dudley Buck_

WOLFGANG MOZART

Apology: The Mozart "Little Journey" was written, and as over a month
had been taken to do the task, the result was something of which I was
justly proud. It was quite unlike anything ever before written. The
printers were ready to take the work in hand, but I begged them to allow
me two more days for careful revision; and as I was just starting away
to give a lecture at Jane