and that Jean, who had not received
musical training, or his secretary could also play to him. He had a
passion for music, or at least for melody and stately rhythmic measures,
though his ear was not attuned to what are termed the more classical
compositions. For Wagner, for instance, he cared little, though in a
letter to Mrs. Crane he said:

Certainly nothing in the world is so solemn and impressive and so
divinely beautiful as "Tannhauser." It ought to be used as a religious
service.

Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies also moved him deeply. Once, writing
to Jean, he asked:

What is your favorite piece of music, dear? Mine is Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony. I have found that out within a day or two.

It was the majestic movement and melodies of the second part that he
found most satisfying; but he oftener inclined to the still tenderer
themes of Chopin's nocturnes and one of Schubert's impromptus, while
the "Lorelei" and the "Erlking" and the Scottish airs never wearied him.
Music thus became a chief consolation during these lonely days--rich
organ harmonies that filled the emptiness of his heart and beguiled
from dull, material surroundings back into worlds and dreams that he had
known and laid away.

He went out very little that winter--usually to the homes of old and
intimate friends. Once he attended a small dinner given him by George
Smalley at the Metropolitan Club; but it was a private affair, with only
good friends present. Still, it formed the beginning of his return to
social life, and it was not in his nature to retire from the brightness
of human society, or to submerge himself in mourning. As the months wore
on he appeared here and there, and took on something of his old-time
habit. Then his annual bronchitis appeared, and he was confined a good
deal to his home, where he wrote or planned new reforms and enterprises.

The improvement of railway service, through which fewer persons should
be maimed and destroyed each year, interested him. He estimated that
the railroads and electric lines killed and wounded more than all of the
wars combined, and he accumulated statistics and prepared articles on
the subject, though he appears to have offered little of such matter for
publication. Once, however, when his sympathy was awakened by the victim
of a frightful trolley and train collision in Newark, New Jersey, he
wrote a letter which promptly found its way into print.

DEAR MISS MADELINE, Your good & a