Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

DEPPE AND SCHARWENCKA 139
listen to any more ! I begged them, however, so
earnestly not to send me away without one more trial,
that one of them—who, it seems, had from the first
moment felt an interest in me—asked if I was able
to read at sight. And when I said that I could,
he induced his professional colleagues to give me
another trial. Mozart's Sonatas were placed before
me, and my reading, or rather my attempt at reading
these, immediately influenced the board in my favour,
and I at once perceived with joy that I would be
admitted into the Conservatorium. But before all
this was finally arranged, my ideal conceptions about
musical Germany, and, above all, of the world-
renowned Leipzig Conservatorium, received a cruel
blow. I had fondly believed that such musical genius
as I supposed myself to possess would, even in the
crudest possible state, have at once gained me
admission—that, in fact, I should be admitted into
the Leipzig Conservatorium, have all my expenses
paid, and have my musical education free. I was,
therefore, thunderstruck when the question was put
to me, " Who is going to pay the fees for your instruc-
tion, and the cost of your living here?" I was over-
come with sorrow, for it seemed as if, after all I had
gone through, my plans were to end in nothing. But
my great earnestness, my firm belief in my own
powers, and perhaps, still more than these, something
in my bearing which showed them that under my
shabby attire there was one who had come of well-