Garcia the Centenarian and His Times: Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia's Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and ScienceMackinlay, M. (Malcolm) Sterling
History
Garcia the Centenarian and His Times: Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia's Life and Labours for the Advancement of Music and Science
A few days later Señor Manuel Garcia went to dine with Hermann Klein,
who had come over from New York for a few weeks, and here the
centenarian renewed his acquaintance with his pupil's younger brother,
Charles. The meeting took him back over thirty years, to those days in
Bentinck Street when Charles Klein, then a sturdy, dark little fellow of
eight, used to go out regularly to fetch the maestro's lunch of
sponge-cake from a baker's round the corner in Welbeck Street. Much
water had passed under the bridge since these days, and he had now come
over from a sojourn of many years in America, a man of forty, and one of
New York's most successful playwrights.
In the following July I went up to spend a Sunday afternoon with the
centenarian. It was quite impossible to believe that he was indeed in
his 101st year. He actually displayed more vivacity than at the time
when I was commencing lessons with him, while even in those days my
mother had asserted that he seemed more hale and active than he had been
when she in her turn was studying under him twenty-five years before.
Truly as he grew older he appeared to become younger.
Charles Klein came to call on the maestro on this same afternoon, and
was put through many searching questions with regard to the latest
phases of American thought and character. When tea arrived our host
displayed the most extraordinary energy, jumping up and insisting upon
getting a small table upon which the playwright might rest his cup and
plate. The latter he watched with anxiety. When it was empty, he
promptly fetched a plate of scones, and with the most wonderful humour
and good spirits pressed the guest to take some more. As for his own
wants, it was perfectly futile for one to offer to take charge of his
cup. Nothing would satisfy him but that he should himself take it over
to be refilled. When I rose to go, the maestro insisted on coming to the
front door, as in the old days, and in shaking hands said, "I shall hope
to see you here soon again."
For the next nine months Manuel Garcia led a life almost incredible in
one of such age. He continued to rise early, go to bed late, and enjoy
walks, drives, theatres, concerts, and dinners as thoroughly as a man
forty years his junior.
His hale old age he would ascribe to his mental and physical activity,
his moderate living (he did not touch wine or spirits until he was
ninety), and his good digestion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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