BACHELLER 



535 



BACON 



music, and called the "master of masters" be- 

 cause his works inspired so many of the famous 

 musicians who followed him among them Mo- 

 zart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, 

 Chopin, Liszt, Rubinstein and Wagner. Bach 

 came of a family distinguished in music for 

 many generations, and he was trained in the 

 art from early childhood. He secured his first 

 paying position, that of violinist at the court 

 at Weimar, when he was eighteen, and after- 

 wards held several organ and choir positions 

 until 1723, when he became music director in 

 the two principal churches at Leipzig, where he 

 remained until his death. 



Bach composed for the organ, piano, stringed 

 in>truments, and the human voice. His vocal 

 works, including passion music, oratorios, 

 masses and cantatas, are masterpieces, and his 

 Saint Matthew Passion, Mass in B Minor and 

 Saint John Passion are the greatest choral 

 pieces ever written. His Contest of Phoebus 

 and Pan is a famous cantata, and well-known 

 oratorios are those for Easter and Christmas. 

 Bach was the greatest organist of his time, 

 and his preludes and fugues for the organ are 

 the most perfect ever composed.. The Well- 

 tempered Clavichord is a book of instruction of 

 great value. He also brought out a new system 

 of fingering, which has had great influence on 

 modern piano playing. Bach was married 

 twice, and eleven of his twenty children were 

 musicians. 



BACHELLER, batch' el er, IRVING (1859- 

 ), an American novelist, born at Pierpont, 

 N. Y., in a house overlooking Paradise Valley, 

 the scene of the first part of his Ebcn Holden, 

 the most widely-read of his books. He was 

 graduated at Saint Lawrence University, Can- 

 ton, N. Y., wrote for several New York papers, 

 and before Ebcn Holden appeared in 1900 he 

 had published two novels and conducted a 

 bureau for supplying magazines with literary 

 material. Urged by a friend to put more of 

 human interest into his stories, he wrote t! 



Is of the North Adirondack n-nion that 

 established Ins f.-uiir. tin- on. :.>d above, 



and Dri and I and Dam I of tin files. 



All of these are natural and simple m 

 and enlivened by quaint humor and hoim-ly 

 philosophy. In a different vein are two 1 

 stories, Charge It and Keeping up with Lizzie, 

 ridiculing some modem American habits of 

 spending money. 



BACHELOR'S BUTTON, a name shared by 

 several i -1. nits whose flower heads reset 

 buttons, notably the bright yellow, double but- 



tercup, the blue cornflower, known in Germany 

 as the Kaiserblume, and the purple globe ama- 

 ranth. The children prefer to believe the 

 story that bachelor's buttons are so-called be- 

 cause they were once carried about by young 

 bachelors who were in love. A quick fading of 

 the flower was a sign that their affection was 

 not returned, but if the flower kept its fresh- 

 ness, they knew their affairs of the heart would 

 prosper. See KAISERBLVMK. 



BACILLUS, basil' us. See BACTERIA AND 

 BACTERIOLOGY. 



BACKGAMMON, bak'gamun, a game of 

 very ancient origin, the name being usually 

 considered a contraction of a Welsh word 

 meaning little battle. It is played by two 

 people upon a double table containing twenty- 



BACKGAMMON BOARD 



four spear-shaped divisions called points, di- 

 vided into four sections of six points. Each 

 player takes 15 men, or checkers, which are 

 placed on the table in the manner shown in thr 

 illustration. A player then makes a throw 

 with two dice. The score of the dice indicates 

 the point to which a checker may be moved, 

 the points nearest to rarh player being num- 

 bered from 1 to 12. The object of the game 

 is to move all the checkers from point to 

 point round the table on to the fourth section 

 of 6 points. From tin -IT tin y an removed in 

 numbers according to the score of the dice 

 thrown. The player first removing all his 

 checkers is the win 



BACON, bay' k'n, the flesh of the hog, spe- 

 (i illy prepared by salting and smoking. The 

 best quality is made from the sides and 1 

 though oth.T portions of the carcass supply 

 bacon of inferior grade. The flesh is first cured 



