“I of course have commissions to write several operas, and I am at work on a musical composition which I hope to make the best thing that I have ever attempted.”
His temperament is well illustrated by an incident on a western railroad. The Sousa organization, which had been playing in one of the larger cities, desired to reach a small town in time for a matinée performance, but, owing to the narrow policy of the railway officials, the bandmaster was obliged to engage a special train, at a cost of $175.
In the railway yard stood the private coach of the president of the system, and just before the Sousa train pulled out, the discovery was made that the regular train, to which it had been intended to attach the president’s car, was three hours late. A request was made of the bandmaster that he allow the car to be attached to his train; but Sousa, with that twinkle in his eye which every person who has seen him must have noticed, simply smiled, and, with the most extravagant politeness, replied: “I am sorry, gentlemen, but, having chartered this train for my especial use, I am afraid I shall have to limit its use to that purpose.”
XL
Blind, Deaf, and Dumb, Patient Effort Wins for Her Culture and Rare Womanhood.
“I AM trying to prove that the sum of the areas of two similar polygons, constructed on the two legs of a right triangle, is equal to the area of a similar polygon constructed on the hypotenuse. It is a very difficult demonstration,” she added, and her expressive face, on which every passing emotion is plainly written, looked serious for a moment, as she laid her hand upon the work about which I had asked.
Helen Keller, the deaf and blind girl, whose intellectual attainments have excited the wonder and admiration of our most prominent educators, is well known to all readers, but Helen Keller, the blithesome, rosy-cheeked, light-hearted maiden of nineteen, whose smile is a benediction, and whose ringing laugh is fresh and joyous as that of a child, is not, perhaps, so familiar.
HELEN KELLER AT HOME.
By kind permission of her teacher, Miss Sullivan, I was granted the privilege of an interview with Miss Keller at her residence on Newbury street, Boston, where she was busily at work preparing for the entrance examinations to Radcliffe College.