united on a
musical basis and have expressed itself in a weekly "sing" I might find
it hard to explain. None of us fellows was especially blessed with a
voice; and the various Gertrudes and Adeles that met with us were
assuredly without any marked sanction to vocalize. Possibly the "sing"
was the mere outcome of youthful exuberance and of the tendency of young
and eager molecules to crystallize into what came, later, to be termed a
"bunch."

As for Raymond himself, he never sang at all. "Oh, come, Rayme; join
in!" the other fellows would suggest--and suggest in vain.

"I'm doing _my_ part," he would return, giving the piano-stool a nearer
hitch to the keyboard.

In fact, it was his specific function to preside at the Chickering, the
Weber, the Steinway, according to the facilities offered by the
particular home--for we moved about in rotation. This service, which we
presently came to consider sufficient in itself, dispensed him from
exhibiting his nature in so articulate a thing as actual vocal
utterance. This he was quite opposed to: he would never even try a hymn
in church. But he could accompany; he could improvise; he could
modulate; he could transpose any simple air. The ease and readiness with
which he did all this made less obvious--indeed, almost
imperceptible--his fundamental unwillingness to abandon himself before
others (especially if members of his own circle) to any manifestation
that might be taxed with even a remote emotionalism. And yet, at that
very time, he was laying the foundations of a claim to be that broad and
vague thing called an "artist." Even as early as this, apparently, he
was troubled by two contradictory impulses: he wanted to be an artist
and give himself out; and he wanted to be a gentleman and hold himself
in. An entangling, ruinous paradox.

This comment on Raymond's musical inclinations and musical services may
require a bit of shading: I believe that, after all, he never quite
cared for music unless he had, in all literalness, his "hand" in it. He
never liked to hear any one else play the piano, still less the violin;
concerts of all sorts were likely to bore him; and he never really rose
to an understanding of the more recondite and elaborate musical forms:
to have his fingers on the keyboard--especially when improvising in a
secure inarticulateness--was his great desideratum.

In our little group we ran from seventeen to nineteen; some of us just
finishing high school, other