" He once told me he had been intimate with Thackeray when they were
wild young men in Paris, and that they had both of them known the woman
whom Thackeray had taken for the original of Becky Sharp.
The Foster songs quite captivated my boyhood. I could sing a little, as
well as play, and learned each of them--especially Old Folks at Home and
My Old Kentucky Home--as they appeared. Their contemporary vogue was
tremendous. Nothing has since rivalled the popular impression they made,
except perhaps the Arthur Sullivan melodies.
Among my ambitions to be a great historian, dramatist, soldier and writer
of romance I desired also to be a great musician, especially a great
pianist. The bone-felon did the business for this later. But all my life I
have been able to thumb the keyboard at least for the children to dance,
and it has been a recourse and solace sometimes during intervals of
embittered journalism and unprosperous statesmanship.
V
Theodore Thomas and I used to play duos together. He was a master of the
violin before he took to orchestration. We remained the best of friends to
the end of his days.
On the slightest provocation, or none, we passed entire nights together.
Once after a concert he suddenly exclaimed: "Don't you think Wagner was a
---- fraud?"
A little surprised even by one of his outbreaks, I said: "Wagner may have
written some trick music but I hardly think that he was a fraud."
He reflected a moment.
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