acquired a liking for the language that has remained with me ever since.

If the reader has the sound old-fashioned notions about education by
which all subjects were strictly divided into the two classes of serious
and frivolous pursuits, he will already have suspicions about the
soundness of a training that included the two idle accomplishments of
Drawing and French, and what will he say, I wonder, when music is added
to the list? My initiation into music took place in the following
manner. We had a dancing-master who came regularly to Mr. Cape's house
to prepare us to shine in society, and his instrument was the convenient
dancing-master's pocket fiddle or kit. Although this instrument gives
forth but a feeble kind of music, I was far more enchanted with it than
by the dancing, and wrote a most persuasive letter to my good guardian
imploring her to let me study the violin. Those were the happy times
when one had energy for everything! I had already three languages on
hand, and the art of painting in water-colors, besides which I was in a
mathematical school where boys were prepared for Cambridge, [Footnote:
Doncaster School at that time was a sort of little nursery for
Cambridge. Mr. Cape was a Cambridge man, and so was his brother, the
able master of Peterborough School.] but there seemed to be no reason
why the art of violin-playing should not be added to these pursuits. My
guardian, before consenting, prudently wrote to Mr. Cape to ask if this
new accomplishment would not interfere too much with other matters, and
his answer was in these words: "The lad is getting on well enough with
his studies, so if he wants to amuse himself a little by scraping
catgut, even let him scrape away!" It will be seen that Mr. Cape did not
assign to music the high rank in education which has been attributed to
it by some famous thinkers in ancient and modern times. Few musical
sensations experienced during my whole life have equalled in intensity
the sensation of hearing our dancing-master play upon a full-sized