About This Book
"..... So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and forehead, - the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand, - and so satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some of his companions, upset an inkstand over his prize essay, and, overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep. "
