Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

S//? STERNDALE BENNETT
Bach, or Beethoven. My governesses taught me
Czerny's Exercises in the most slovenly and incorrect
manner, also some of Herz, Plachy, Eosellen, and
even Thalberg ; and the more facility I got—and I
rattled through these—the more I began to dislike
the pianoforte, and often wished that I were grown
up, and not forced to sit at it for two long hours
every day.
All my love for music at this time went into sing-
ing ; for I had a voice which seemed to grow with
my growth, and was so clear and sweet and strong,
that I had to try and hold it back in church, lest
people should turn round to look where the voice
cam&from. Not only had I never been in a theatre
or a concert-room, but I had never even heard of
such places. I had read, however, of troubadours
and wandering singers ; and it came over me some-
timres that my voice would bring me out into the
world, and I longed to sing to a great crowd. But
then I grew frightened at my thoughts (which, having
been reared in a Puritan school, I regarded as sinful),
and I believed that I ought to pray that they might
not come to me ; and this I did, poor child ! often
with many tears ; still, singing became more and more
to me, and whatever troubled, whatever pleased me,
was all confessed in song. I used to start away out
into the fields, or get up into the attics of the house,
where no one could see that I often wept as I sang
and there was a strange charm in those solitary tears
; !