himself upon a bed in a cold room for a nap before dinner on returning
from a rehearsal at the opera house. He had neglected to open the
furnace register or cover himself, and he awoke thoroughly chilled.
After dinner he went to a rehearsal of the Oratorio Society, which was
preparing Verdi's Manzoni Requiem for performance the following week.
Before the conclusion of the rehearsal he was so ill that he was
forced to hurry home in a carriage. The next morning it was found that
pneumonia had set in, complicated by pleurisy, and a consultation of
physicians was held. Only one of the subscription performances at the
Metropolitan Opera House remained to be given, but there were still
before the director in the way of operatic work five supplementary
performances and seasons at Boston, Chicago, and Cincinnati. This
naturally caused the sick man a great deal of concern. He deferred to
the wishes of his physicians and sent his son Walter, in whose talent
and skill he felt great confidence and pride, to conduct the remaining
subscription performance in the evening, hoping in the meantime to
secure such good care as to enable him to be in his chair on Thursday
evening when "Die Walküre" was to be repeated. In this hope, too, he
was disappointed and had to send his son a second time to conduct a
performance of the drama which had put the capstone to the astonishingly
successful season which his zeal, learning, skill, enterprise, and
perseverance had brought about. As on the previous day he went through
the score with his son and called his attention to some of the details
of the responsible and difficult task before him. The young man's
knowledge of the score and aptitude in grasping the suggestions made to
him comforted and quieted the father, and the representations at the
opera house went off in a manner which caused complimentary comments on
Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, February 15th, at
3 o'clock A.M., a change in the sick man's condition set in, and the
physicians, realizing that the case was hopeless, so informed the family