CONCERTS AT DRESDEN 



241 



ruin : the doors of the spacious old homestead swinging loose 

 on their hinges ; the shutters falling from the windows. In the 

 stress of war the family, broken in fortune, had gone back to 

 Spain. His former comrade was dead. 



For the first time during this winter Mr. Shaler had the op- 

 portunity to hear fine music almost daily; he had a sensitive 

 ear and often wished he had time to practise composition in 

 order that he might give expression to the themes constantly 

 floating in his head. The concerts given in the Zoological Gar- 

 den were a source of delight to him. He liked the friendly 

 German fashion of sitting at a table and between the pauses of 

 the music talking over a cup of coffee with a genial friend. 

 This custom, he said, took the strain off the attention and 

 enabled one to avoid the mental dyspepsia which came from 

 swallowing a whole concert at one gulp. Furthermore he was 

 taught to associate good music with pecuniary profit: Frau 

 M. and she was excellent authority insisted that the 

 saving at home in light and fuel and sharing the cost of supper 

 with a sociable friend made the afternoon concert an actual 

 economy. He enjoyed watching the family life that adjourned 

 to the Music Hall, the knitting and darning that went on among 

 the women, and the ever-sympathetic dog who barked in unison 

 with his master's clapping of hands this well-to-do, self- 

 respecting master who wore a fur-lined coat, a symbol of luxury, 

 and caressed it just a little when he laid it on the back of his 

 chair, fur side out. Indeed he was enamored in those happy 

 days of the simple, kindly German folk. 



Among the scientific men of Dresden he saw something of 

 Guinitz, and attended the meeting of the Isis Society for the 

 promotion of natural history. It was also the first time he 

 had ever been able to study a large number of animals in close 

 confinement. The well-managed Zoological Garden inspired 

 him with the desire to see something similar established at 

 Cambridge, and with this end in view he often conferred with 

 the director concerning the running of such an institution. 



