n advance of the rest of the company.
On reaching home he found his wife had died and been buried several
weeks before.

It was a severe shock to the poor man, but fortunately there was more
philosophy to his nature than romance, which is a marked trait in the
German character. All this is plainly evidenced by the fact that in many
German churches when a good wife dies, the pastor, at the funeral, as
the best friend of the stricken husband, casts his eyes over the
congregation for a suitable successor to the deceased. And very often
the funeral baked meats do coldly furnish forth the marriage feast. Man
is made to mourn, but most widowers say but a year.

The prompt second marriage of Bach was certainly a compliment to the
memory of his first wife, who was a most amiable helpmeet and friend. No
soft sentiment disturbed the deep immersement of this man in his work.
He was as businesslike a man as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who arranged his
second marriage by correspondence, and then drove over in a buggy one
afternoon to bring home the promised bride, making notes by the way on
the Over-Soul and man's place in the Universal Cosmos.

Events proved the wisdom of Johann Sebastian Bach's choice. His first
wife filled his heart, but this one was not only to do as much, but
often to guide his hand and brain. He was thirty-eight with a brood of
nine. Anna Magdalena was twenty-three, strong, fancy-free, and by a
dozen, lacking one, was to increase the limit.

As the years went by, Bach occasionally would arise in public places,
and with uncovered head thank God for the blessings He had bestowed upon
him, especially in sending him such a wife.

Anna Magdalena Wulken was a singer of merit, a player on the harp, and a
person of education. She certainly had no seraglio notions of wanting to
be petted and pampered and taken care of, or she would not have assumed
the office of stepmother to that big family and married a poor man. Bach
never had time to make money. Very soon after their marriage Bach began
to dictate music to his wife. A great many pieces can be seen in Leipzig
and Berlin copied out in her fine, painstaking hand, with an occasional
interlining by the Master. Other pieces written by him are amended by
her, showing plainly that they worked together.

As proof that this was no honeymoon whim, the collaboration continued
for over a score of years, in spite of increasing domestic
responsibilities.

From Kothen, Bach was c