Clair and other
officers, listening to young Julien de Langeais, who sat on another log,
playing a violin with surpassing skill. Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire,
knowing his prowess as a violinist, had asked him to come and play for
the Invincibles. Now he was playing for them and for several thousand
more who were gathered in the pine woods.
Young de Langeais sat on a low stump, and the great crowd made a solid
mass around him. But he did not see them, nor the pine woods nor the
heavy cannon sitting on the ridges. He looked instead into a region of
fancy, where the colors were brilliant or gay or tender as he imagined
them. Harry, with no technical knowledge of music but with a great love
of it, recognized at once the touch of a master, and what was more,
the soul of one.
To him the violin was not great, unless the player was great, but when
the player was great it was the greatest musical instrument of all.
He watched de Langeais' wrapt face, and for him too the thousands of
soldiers, the pines and the cannon on the ridges melted away. He did not
know what the young musician was playing, probably some old French air or
a great lyric outburst of the fiery Verdi, whose music had already spread
through America.
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