VOL. XXVI. (Second Series.)--August, 1895.-No. 152. OF THE UNIVERSITY" CALIFOR bly not the divine inspiration of the heaven-born genius encouraged by a brain full of great live thoughts, but the hazy, lazy, irritating itching to lay the book you are reading aside and write not to write anything in particular, but just write, compose. Mine - for I am a victim generally exhausts itself, I admit, while I am sharpening one end of my pencil and chewing the other into a brush-like pulp, but still I am unable to resist this sudden, delightful call." The Reader remarked that he had heard the still, small voice often, but that it generally reached him from the composing rooms via the Office Boy. The Contributor. "When I was a boy and first heard an orchestra, I would sit through number after number with eyes half closed and thoughts spanning the universe. I had no idea what was being played, the air did not particularly interest me. Only, one drove my ambitions in one direction and one in another. Sometimes with the music I pictured myself behind the footlights- an orator- holding the audience, of which I was one as I dreamed, spellbound, moving them to tears or laughter by the power of my eloquence. Sentences of my mythical speech would flash through my brain. My breath would come quickly, for as I would finish this matchless oration that was to make my name honored for all time I saw the audience rising as one man and cheering until the whole earth echoed with the shouts. The orchestra would cease and I would descend from Olympus, a little sheepish withal, but with my pulses beating like trip hammers and my eyes all aglow. Music fired a thousand latent unknown, unformulated ambitions. They were big, warm, and generous. I fairly ached to be doing. I could not wait for the years of my adolescence to pass. When I arrived to man's estate the horizon narrowed suddenly. Instead of conquering the world and moving multitudes, I found that there were. certain stubborn elementary facts that must be dealt with before I could ever make (Copyright, 1895, by OVERLAND MONTHLY PUBLISHING CO.) All rights reserved. Commercial Publishing Company, S. F. |