i io WHEAT AND WOMAN 



dishes and the side dishes without the smallest 

 shadow of consciousness of her pretty dinner-gown. 

 Many interesting guests came to the Clyst that 

 Christmas week, among them being a very pleasant 

 Englishman of perfect manners who played bridge 

 far and away better than anybody else, but who I 

 noticed was always merciful and even kind to his 

 partner ; and, best of all, there was a man who knew 

 music. He was the brother of my host, and I think 

 the most truly musical man I have met outside 

 Germany. We had both been students at the Royal 

 Academy, which was a bond, but he was there in 

 the days when it was under the directorship of Sir 

 George Macfarren, before my time. He had gone 

 out to Canada and was farming in the neighbour- 

 hood of Elkhorn. I don't think he was wealthy, and 

 I am not sure that he had a piano in his own home ; 

 and pianos are sufficiently rare in Western Canada 

 to be thoroughly appreciated. But he touched 

 every note as though he loved it, and uttered every 

 phrase as though he understood ; and he had the 

 delightful way of passing from one message to 

 another, just making music without waiting for the 

 interruption or encouragement of conventional 

 thanks. The memory of that Christmas octave is 

 set amidst familiar phrases of Beethoven, Weber, 

 Schumann and Bach, with Chopin in between and 

 all around, and strangely shadowed with that 

 curiously alive bust of Chopin in the Luxembourg 

 garden, a keepsake which seems to have caught the 

 spirit of radiant vision, and passionate, reckless 

 longing and tender acquiescence which reveals 

 itself in the consolation and inspiration of the ex- 

 quisite work of Chopin, as though the artist had 



