arning; yet
Christoph persistently kept him to simple pieces such as he could
master without the slightest difficulty, and which, therefore,
afforded him no gratification whatever. He longed to be studying more
advanced works, and there were times when this longing seemed
insupportable--when the soul of this earnest child-musician rose in
revolt against the tyrannical treatment of his elder brother.
Christoph's lack of appreciation of Sebastian's capacity and gift for
music was, moreover, so marked as to crush the feelings of love and
respect which otherwise would have found a place in Sebastian's heart
for the brother whom the sad circumstances of his childhood had made
his guardian.

[Illustration: BACH.
From photo RISCHGITZ.]

Johann Sebastian Bach, as the young musician was named, was an orphan.
Ten years before the period at which our story opens--on March 21,
1685--he had first seen the light in the long, low-roofed cottage,
which is still standing in the little German town of Eisenach,
nestling at the foot of the wooded heights which form part of the
romantically beautiful district of the Thuringer Wald. It is a country
abounding in legendary lore, which, taking its birth from the recesses
of the interminable forest, and perpetuated in ballad, has for ages
found a home in the sequestered valleys lying locked between the
hills. On one of the latter, overlooking the town, stands the
Wartburg, in which Luther made his home, and where he translated the
Bible into the German tongue.

Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, organist of Eisenach, was
the descendant of a long race of musicians of the name who had
followed music not merely as a means of livelihood, but with the
earnest desire of furthering its artistic aims. For close upon two
hundred years before Sebastian was born the family of Bach had thus
laboured to develop and improve their art in the only direction in
which it was practised in the Germany of those days--namely, as a
fitting accompaniment to the simple, but deeply devotional, services
of the Lutheran Church. So greatly had the influence of this ancient
and closely-united family made itself felt in regard to church music
that at Erfurt, where its members had practised the art for
generations, all musicians were known as 'the Bachs,' although no Bach
had actually resided in the town for many years.

That Sebastian should have shown a fondness for music at a very early
age is not, th