Regarding his personal appearance, Herr C. F. Pohl, the Viennese librarian says, that "though small he was well made and distinguished looking, with a singularly formed head. His dress was always neat and well chosen. Though lively in company, he was naturally rather silent. From the moment he took his violin in his hand he became another man, whose whole being seemed to expand with the sounds he drew from it." In his own home the "Waltz-King," who contributed so much to ball-room merriment, appears to have been unhappy. His father had been the keeper of a beer house, and he himself married the daughter of an innkeeper, Anna Streim, from whom he was divorced on the ground of incompatibility of temper, after eighteen years. They had five children--two daughters and three sons, Johann, Joseph and Eduard, all three of whom have became famous in the annals of dance music. [Illustration: FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE ELDER JOHANN STRAUSS IN EARLY MANHOOD. Drawn and lithographed by C. Lutherer.] Eduard, the youngest, born on Feb. 14, 1835, has proved the least talented of the three. His compositions, numbering over two hundred, though often piquant in harmony and cleverly orchestrated, are deficient in melodic spontaneity and originality and often a mere echo of his brother Johann's genius. (There are melodious exceptions, the Doctrinen Walzer, opus 79, e. g.) He is a good conductor of dance music, and since the death of his brother Josef, in 1870, and the retirement of Johann from executive music in the same year, he has been sole conductor of the Strauss orchestra at court balls and in the Volksgarten. Josef, the second of the brothers, had more talent for composition than Eduard. He was of delicate constitution and lived only forty-three years (Aug. 22, 1827, to July 22, 1870), yet the number of his original pieces is two hundred and eighty-three, to which must be added about three hundred arrangements. Some of his waltzes and polkas--like the "Village Swallows" and "Woman's Heart"--have become great favorites, and deservedly so, but I cannot agree with the opinion, which has been held, that he was the superior--or even the equal--of his brother Johann. He was a good pianist, and for a number of years divided with his brothers the task of conducting the Strauss orchestra in Vienna. We now come to Johann Strauss, the oldest of the brothers, born Oct. 25, 1825, and still living. It is not often that a man of genius has a son who attains even greater eminence than himself, but in this case the palm must be awarded to Johann Strauss, Jr., whose creative power was not only greater than that of his brothers, but soared into regions of which even his father never dreamed.