the flashing dark eyes,
before which their womankind cower and shake; old men who but for the
stubble on their chins would look like ancient cameos; girls with
shapely limbs and handsome faces; middle-aged women who remind one of
the witches in Macbeth; women younger still, who have neither shape nor
make; urchins and little lassies who remind one of the pictures of
Murillo; in short, a population of wood-carvers and modellers, vendors
of plaster casts, artist-models, sugar-bakers and mosaic-workers, living
in the streets the greater part of the day, retiring to their wretched
attics at night, sober and peaceful generally, but desperate and
unmanageable when in their cups.

The cab stopped before a six-storied house which had seen better days,
in a dark, narrow street, into which the light of day scarcely
penetrated. The moment we alighted we heard a charivari of string
instruments and voices, and as we ascended the steep, slimy, rickety
staircase the sound grew more distinct. When we reached the topmost
landing, my friend knocked at one of the three or four doors, and,
without waiting for an answer, we entered. It was a scantily furnished
room with a bare brick floor, an old bedstead in one corner, a few
rush-bottomed chairs, and a deal table; but everything was scrupulously
clean. Behind the table, a cotton nightcap on his head, his tall thin
frame wrapt in an old overcoat, stood our old friend, the composer; in
front, half a dozen urchins, in costumes vaguely resembling those of the
Calabrian peasantry, grimy like coalheavers, their black hair standing
on end with attention, were rehearsing a new piece of music. Then I
understood it all. He was the professor of pifferari, an artist for all
that, an unappreciated genius, perhaps, who, rather than not be heard at
all, introduced a composition of his own into their hackneyed programme,
and tasted the sweets of popularity, without the accompanying rewards
which, nowadays, popularity invariably brings. This one had known
Paisiello and Rossini, had been in the thick of the excitement on the
first night of the "Barbiere," and had dreamt of similar triumphs.
Perhaps his genius was as much entitled to them as that of the others,
but he had loved not wisely, but too well, and when he awoke from the
love-dream, he was too ruined in body and mind to be able to work for
the realization of the artistic one. He would accept no aid. Three years
later, we carried him to his grave. A