THE COURIER.
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railroads, etc., etc., are statistically it
not exhaustively treated. It is a con
venient book on the writing table of
anyone, an editor, for instance, who
uses large wholesale quantities of facts
singly, and in groups a great many
times a week. No family ought to be
without it, especially if the head of the
house has sporting tendencies for it
gives the turf records, baseball, foot
ball, rowing, golf and bicycle records.
Many a dispute wnich has Anally separ
ated the members of a loving family
group might be averted by the posses
sion of tho Journal Almanac.
Mr. John Randolph begins in this
week's Courikk a history or the musical
organizations of the city. Very prop
erly the series opens with the Matinee
Musical e and will include the Hagenow
Btring quartet, the May festival chorus,
and the notable choirs of the city,
Mr. J. E. Houtz who is well on his
way to the internal collector-ship has
many friends in the city and state. He
has also a clean record for ability and
honesty. From a civil sen ice point of
view he is at the head of the class. Al
though he has not the splendid record
for political combination and organiza
tion that Ed. Sizer has, his appointment
would ensure an able administration of
the duties of his office.
MUSICAL MENTION,
John Randolph.
THE MATINEE MCSICALE.
This' is emphatically the era of woman.
Womau in literature, woman in art.
woman in statecraft is making fcer pres
ence felt if not alwayB seen. In music
there are at present not only interpreters
and executants of the very highest
order such as Teresa Carrenoand Adela
aus der Ohe women, pianists but also
the hosts of violinists and harpists and
even plaj ers of other orchestra! instru
ments, besides the lovely choir of sirg
who Bince the time they first had the
opportunity to compete have constantly
surpassed the other sex. I think one
may say in truth that in the department
of vocal music the superior flexibility of
the vocal mechanism of the female has
rendered her, from the standpoint of
tone production at least, alwajs the
superior of her brother. Nor has her
success been confined to the interpreta
tion alone. Woman in music means no
longer woman the reflector of the ideas
of others. Today we are confronted
with woman as composer. Cecile Cham
inade, Aususta Holmes, Mrs. U. H. A.
Beach these are living active creative
minds in the musical world, and it would
take more space than I shall be able to
devote to this article to discuss their in
fluence upon the art of the present day.
And that is another story as Mr. Kip
ling would say I cannot, however,
leive this fascinating topic (which I
would gladly dwell upon) without re
marking that I have never played over
the compositions of Cecile Chaminade,
whom I consider one of the most origin
al composers of the present da without
feeling that one source of the delightful
freshnes3 ot her works is the fact that
she is a woman as well as a creative
genius, and that no one has said her
best things for her many times over al
ready. There is a Latin proverb "Per
eant isti qui ante nos nostra dixerunt"
and it seems to me that men, great
hulking brutes! have said most of my
clever things before I was born; but it
must be different with women. The
woman Shakespeare is yet to be the
Beethoven, the Michael Angelo. True
Robert Browning called his wife the
moon of poets, but the sun ha3notyet
shone. What I am trying to say is that
if a really great creative genius in any
department of intellectual activity shall
be born a woman, her very femininity
will be a source of power, for the world
his been gazed at through masculine
eyes so long has been written about
from a masculine point of view, with
pens held in masculine lingers. Cecile
Chaminade looks at the world of music
with feminine eyes which are none the
less the eyes of genius, and there is in
these works of hers an unstained fresh
ness which is very nearly strangeness.
I find this quality also in that singular
book which is now almost old, having
survived a decade the autobiography of
Marie Bashkirtseff only here there is
morbidness and disease tainting the
freshness of the feminine subjectivity.
But morbid or not the book is interest
ing because as a woman she set down a
woman's impressions and confessions an
Jean Jacques Rousseau had done lorg
before for the vainer sex.
But I did not intend to digress so far.
As far as I am able to do so, being a
man, I wish to give an idea of the his
tory and aims of that department of the
woman's clubs of Lincoln known as the
"Matinee MuBicale," which I consider a
source of much musical activity and a
valuable adjunct to the education of the
public in artistic matters. Io a small
city there is small opportunity for the
study of plastic arte. With the single
exception of book illustrations (of which
distinctively modern art no educated
man need be ignorant, for our books
and even cheap magazines teem with
good pen drawings and process repro
ductions) the masterpieces of painting
and sculpture and architecture are not
near enough to our daily lives to re
joice us or to make for sweetness and
light. Books we have how could we
do without them? but it requires no
wanderings in Europe or pilgrimage to
the "World's Fair" in Chicago to show
us how bare our lives are of the pictur
esque and the beautiful. But if the eyo
is not charmed and educated by these
things, it is possible in this small city at
least to hear from time to time com
petent perfoimances of many of the
greatest masters of music, classical and
modern. I have in the past expressed
my gratitude to the musicians whose
unselfish endeavora made thePhilhar.
monic Orchestra possible and its con
certs an artistic if only moderate finan
cial success to the Hagenow String
Quartet for their capable performance
of chamber music to Mrs. P. V. M.
Raymond for her labors with chorus
and orchestra in giving some of the
masterpieces of choral music.
It remains for me as the self appoint
ed and humble historian of musical
progress in Lincoln to point out that
lovers of musical art are indebted also
to Mrs. D. A. Campbell, the president of
the Matinee Musicale since its founding
three years ago. I have not an author
itative statement of the facts at hand,
but the history of this club is very near
ly as follows:
TO HE CONTINUED.
Go to
A Secret.
Sunk deep in a sea,
A sea of the dead,
Lies a book, that thall be
Never opened or read.
Its sibylline pages
A secret enclose,
The flower of the Ages,
A rose, a red rose.
That sea of the dead
Is my soul; and the book
Is my heart; and the red
Rose, the love you forsook.
-Julian Hawthorne, in February Lip-pincott's.
"Where are you going.my pretty maide?"
"I'm going to Sherry's, sir," she saide.
"And what's to be there, my pretty
maide?"
"A gentlemen's dinner, sir," she 6aide.
"Do they want you to dance there, my
pretty maide?"
"Well, not altogether, sir," she saide.
The Coaxer.
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