"Foster was an aristocrat of aristocrats, both by birth and gifts. He
inherited the blood of Richard Steele and of the Kemble family, noted in
English letters and dramatic annals. To these artistic strains he
added undoubtedly the musical temperament of an Italian grandmother or
great-grand-mother. 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compose his own music, but that he had obtained a collection of unpublished