solidity, and a fire that fit them for a place in that coronet one
might fancy made up of the richest of the jewels of the world's
music-makers, and fashioned for the very brows of the Muse herself.

[Illustration: Autograph of Ethelbert Nevin]

Nevin was born in 1862, at Vineacre, on the banks of the Ohio, a few
miles from Pittsburgh. There he spent the first sixteen years of his
life, and received all his schooling, most of it from his father,
Robert P. Nevin, editor and proprietor of a Pittsburgh newspaper, and
a contributor to many magazines. It is interesting to note that he
also composed several campaign songs, among them the popular "Our
Nominee," used in the day of James K. Polk's candidacy. The first
grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over
for Nevin's mother.

From his earliest infancy Nevin was musically inclined, and, at the
age of four, was often taken from his cradle to play for admiring
visitors. To make up for the deficiency of his little legs, he used to
pile cushions on the pedals so that he might manipulate them from
afar.

Nevin's father provided for his son both vocal and instrumental
instruction, even taking him abroad for two years of travel and music
study in Dresden under Von Boehme. Later he studied the piano for two
years at Boston, under B.J. Lang, and composition under Stephen A.
Emery, whose little primer on harmony has been to American music
almost what Webster's spelling-book was to our letters.

At the end of two years he went to Pittsburgh, where he gave lessons,
and saved money enough to take him to Berlin. There he spent the
years 1884, 1885, and 1886, placing himself in the hands of Karl
Klindworth. Of him Nevin says: "To Herr Klindworth I owe everything
that has come to me in my musical life. He was a devoted teacher, and
his patience was tireless. His endeavor was not only to develop the
student from a musical standpoint, but to enlarge his soul in every
way. To do this, he tried to teach one to appreciate and to feel the
influence of such great minds of literature as Goethe, Schiller, and
Shakespeare. He used to insist that a man does not become a musician
by practising so many hours a day at the piano, but by absorbing an
influence from all the arts and all the interests of life, from
architecture, painting, and even politics."

The effect of such broad training--enjoyed rarely enough by music
students--is very evident in Nevin's compositions.