“Very interesting, Mr. Nero. But how did you come to take up music as a study and attain such remarkable proficiency?”
“I took up music in the first place as a remedy for baldness. I was troubled considerably with falling hair and dandruff and I had observed that all professional musicians were endowed with flowing locks. I looked into the subject. I talked to the court barber and to several performers on the violin, clarionet and bass drum, with names ending in ‘off’ and ‘sky,’ who had lately come to Rome from other countries. One musician informed me that five years before he had been so bald that flies trying to skate over the shiny surface would fall and break their legs, but he was now wearing his hair in a Dutch pompadour. He was a skilled performer on the classic lyre.
“I cannot say that the study and performance of music had a similar effect in my case, no appreciable change being noted in the hirsute adornment of my dome of thought, though my wife’s mother did refer to my musical efforts as hair-raising—but there were other compensations. As a result of my daily practicing on the violin—or rather nightly, my hours being from about one to three A. M. as a rule—the price of real estate in the neighborhood dropped twenty-five per cent, and I was able to buy in some very desirable properties I had long had my eye on—for a song. (No pun intended.) It was about this time that some one originated the saying concerning making Rome howl.
“I also played at the Rome Asylum for the Insane every Saturday afternoon, and they were just crazy to hear me. One Friday night five of the inmates committed suicide and my political opponents, as usual, tried to make capital of the occurrence.
“But these little things did not interfere with my purpose to become a finished musician—even though unkind critics said they wished I had finished. And speaking of criticisms, there were some that hurt me to the quick though I suppose history does not regard me as an especially sensitive creature. One of my favorite compositions was entitled ‘Through All Eternity.’ I presume you are acquainted with it. It is still popular.
“I asked a young woman one day if she would like to hear me play ‘Through All Eternity,’ and she replied that that would be her idea of—well, I don’t like to say it, but you doubtless recall the classic definition of war as promulgated by one of your most conspicuous generals. It was a cruel saying.
“But you wished for my opinions on modern music and musicians. I don’t know that I am qualified to judge; not if what I heard the other night is music nowadays. A couple of the boys who were being materialized by a friend of Sir Oliver Lodge inveigled me into going along and attending what the advertisements said was a concert.
“As the first number on the programme, it was announced the orchestra would give an imitation of ‘jazz,’ whatever that is. There was a crash like a pantry shelf full of dishes coming down, followed by a noise that was a combination of a battle and a boiler shop. I thought the roof would fall in next, and I was just preparing to slide out when the man next to me remarked reassuringly: ‘The agony is over.’
“There wasn’t a musical note or a hint of harmony in the whole slam-bang from start to finish. A couple of kids with hammers and an old tin-pan could have achieved the same effect. People paid two dollars and a half a seat to hear that, when they could hire a small boy to run a stick along a picket fence for ten cents. They called that music, and yet the neighbors used to kick when I played ‘Way Down Upon the Tiber River’ and ‘There’s No Place Like Rome’ on my violin at three o’clock in the morning.