He was a cousin of John Rowan, the distinguished
Kentucky lawyer and senator. Of Foster's family, his father, his
brothers, his sisters were all notable as patriots, as pioneers in
engineering, in commerce and in society. One of his brothers designed
and built the early Pennsylvania Railroad system and died executive
vice-president of that great corporation. Thus he was born to the
arts and to social distinction. But, like many men of the creative
temperament, he was born a solitary, destined to live in a land of
dreams. The singular beauty and grace of his person and countenance,
the charm of his voice, manner and conversation, were for the most part
familiar to the limited circle of his immediate family and friends. To
others he was reticent, with a certain hauteur of timidity, avoiding
society and public appearances to the day of his death.

"Now those are the facts about Foster. They certainly do not describe
the 'ne'er-do-well of a good family' who hung round barrooms,
colored-minstrel haunts and theater entrances. I can find only one
incident to show that Foster ever went to hear his own songs sung in
public. He was essentially a solitary, who, while keenly observant of
and entering sympathizingly into the facts of life, held himself aloof
from immediate contact with its crowded stream. He was solitary from
sensitivity, not from bitterness or indifference. He made a large
fortune for his day with his songs and was a popular idol.

"Let us come now to the gravamen of my complaint. You charge on the
authority of mere gossip from the late Will S. Hays, that Foster did
not compose his own music, but that he had obtained a collection of
unpublished manuscripts by an unnamed old 'German musician and thus
dishonestly, by pilfering and suppression' palmed off upon the public
themes and compositions which he could not himself have originated.
Something like this has been said about every composer and writer, big
and little, whose personality and habits did not impress his immediate
neighbors as implying the possession of genius. The world usually
expects direct inheritance and a theatric impressiveness of genius in
its next-door neighbor before it accepts the proof of his works alone.
For that reason Napoleon's paternity in Corsica was ascribed to General
Maboeuf, and Henry Clay's in early Kentucky to Patrick Henry. That
legend of the 'poor, unknown German musician' who composed in poverty
and secrecy the deathless songs