ne. Afterwards three keys as a triad,
were better yet, and when he could grasp a chord of four or five tones
with both hands, he was overjoyed. Meanwhile there was much music to
hear. His mother practised daily herself, and entertained her musical
friends in weekly soirees. Here the best classics were performed with
zeal and true feeling, while little Edward listened and absorbed music
in every pore.

When he was six years old piano lessons began. Mme. Grieg proved a
strict teacher, who did not allow any trifling; the dreamy child found
he could not idle away his time. As he wrote later: "Only too soon it
became clear to me I had to practise just what was unpleasant. Had I
not inherited my mother's irrepressible energy as well as her musical
capacity, I should never have succeeded in passing from dreams to
deeds."

But dreams were turned into deeds before long, for the child tried to
set down on paper the little melodies that haunted him. It is said he
began to do this at the age of nine. A really serious attempt was
made when he was twelve or thirteen. This was a set of variations for
piano, on a German melody. He brought it to school one day to show one
of the boys. The teacher caught sight of it and reprimanded the young
composer soundly, for thus idling his time. It seems that in school he
was fond of dreaming away the hours, just as he did at the piano.

The truth was that school life was very unsympathetic to him,
very narrow and mechanical, and it is no wonder that he took every
opportunity to escape and play truant. He loved poetry and knew
all the poems in the reading books by heart; he was fond, too, of
declaiming them in season and out of season.

With the home atmosphere he enjoyed, the boy Grieg early became
familiar with names of the great composers and their works. One of
his idols was Chopin, whose strangely beautiful harmonies were just
beginning to be heard, though not yet appreciated. His music must have
had an influence over the lad's own efforts, for he always remained
true to this ideal.

Another of his admirations was for Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian
violinist. One day in summer, probably in 1858, when Edward was
about fifteen, this "idol of his dreams" rode up to the Grieg home on
horseback. The family had lived for the past five years at the fine
estate of Landaas, near Bergen. The great violinist had just returned
from America and was visiting his native town, for he too was born in
Be