as given evidence of being
a psychologist and man of sense; he says, and produces proof, that after
the concert season was over Paganini withdrew to a monastery in the
mountains of Switzerland, and there the monks who loved him well,
guarded his retreat. There he found the rest for which his soul craved,
and there he practised on his violin hour after hour, day after day.
All this is better understood when we remember that after each retreat,
Paganini appeared with brand-new effects which electrified his
hearers--"effects taught him by the devil."

Constant appearing before vast multitudes and ceaseless travel create a
depletion that demands rest. Paganini held the balance true by fleeing
to the mountains; there he worked and prayed. That Paganini had a soft
heart, in spite of the silent, cold and melancholy mood that usually
possessed him, is shown in his treatment of his father and mother, who
lived to know the greatness of their son. He wrote his mother kind and
affectionate letters, some of which we have, and provided lavishly for
every want of both his parents. At times he gave concerts for charity,
and on these occasions vast sums were realized.

Paganini died in Eighteen Hundred Forty, aged fifty-six years. His will
provided for legacies to various men and women who had befriended him,
and he also gave to others with whom he had quarreled, thus proving he
was not all clay.

The bulk of his fortune, equal to half a million dollars, was bequeathed
to his son, Baron Achille Paganini. And as if mystery should still
enshroud his memory and this, true to his nature, should be carried out
in his last will, there are those who maintain that Achille Paganini was
not his son at all--only a waif he had adopted. Yet Achille always
stoutly maintained the distinction--but what boots it, since he could
not play his father's violin?

Yet this we know--Paganini, the man of mystery and moods, once lived and
produced music that, Orpheus-like, transfixed the world. We are better
for his having been and this world is a nobler place in that he lived
and played, for listen closely and you can hear, even now, the sweet,
sad echoes of those vibrant strings, touched by the hand of him who
loved them well.

And when we remember the prodigious amount of practise that Paganini
schooled himself to in youth; and join this to the recently discovered
record of his long monastic retreats, when for months he worked and
played and prayed, we