His talent for music was manifested at a very early age, but his father did not encourage it--forgetting how much he himself had suffered in his childhood from parental opposition to his natural inclinations. It was Horace who remarked, almost two thousand years ago, that no man is quite satisfied with his occupation, and everyone fancies he would have been happier had he chosen some other career. This may have been the reason why the elder Strauss, in the midst of his honors and remarkable popularity, decided that none of his sons should become musicians. Johann was to be a merchant, Josef an engineer, and for Eduard, too, some non-musical employment would have been selected had not his father died before he was fourteen. Fortunately for Johann, his mother secretly encouraged his fondness for music, allowing him to take lessons on the violin and in composition. His first waltz was written when he was only six years old, and called his 'First Thought.' That was sixty years ago, and every one of these years has added several waltzes to his list. As a conductor he made his first venture at the age of nineteen, with a band of his own; and when his father died, five years later, he took his place and remained at the head of his orchestra for ten years. As an "orchestral traveller" he was even more enterprising than his father had been, for he extended his journeys as far as America and St. Petersburg, being heard at Gilmore's Jubilee at Boston in 1869, while in St. Petersburg he gave a series of concerts every summer, from 1856 to 1866, always returning to Vienna in winter to furnish the music for the court festivities and the numerous other balls given in that gay city during the carnival. The eminent Viennese critic, Dr. Hanslick, a personal friend of Strauss, says of this early period of his career: "The incessant dispenser of joys to all Vienna, Father Strauss, was a tyrant at home. The sons grew up amid the embittering and demoralizing impressions of an unhappy family life. Finally Johann emancipated himself, trusting in his talent, of which he felt certain, and on that Dommayer-evening suddenly came forth as a musical rival of his father. The first three works, with which he made his début, were the waltzes, 'Gunstwerber,' 'Sinngedichte' and the 'Herzenslust' Polka.... The young man's animal spirits, so long repressed, now began to foam over; favored by his talent, intoxicated by his early successes, petted by the women, Johann Strauss passed his youth in wild enjoyment, always productive, always fresh and enterprising, at the same time frivolous to the point of adventurousness. As in appearance he resembles his father, handsomer, however, more refined and modern, so also his waltzes had the unmistakable Strauss family physiognomy, not without a tendency to originality. Our Viennese, the most expert judges in such matters, at once recognized the budding talent of the young Strauss, who promised soon to overtake his famous parent."