Worn by constant work, worried by his wife's continued illness, dogged by creditors, and unable to get justice from those who owed it to him, his nerves at the early age of thirty-five gave way. His vitality rapidly declined and at last went out as a candle does when blown upon by a sudden gust from an open door. It was a blustering winter day in December, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-one, when his burial occurred. A little company of friends assembled, but no funeral-dirge was played for him, save the blast blown through the naked branches of the trees, as they hurried the plain pine coffin to its final resting-place. At the gate of the cemetery the few friends turned back and left the lifeless clay to the old gravedigger, who never guessed the honor thus done him. It was a pauper's grave that closed over the body of Mozart--coffin piled on coffin, and no one marked the spot. All we know is, that somewhere in Saint Mark's Cemetery, Vienna, was buried in a trench the most accomplished composer and performer the world has ever known. It was a hundred years afterward before the city made tardy amends by erecting a fitting monument to his memory. His best monument is his work. The melody that once filled his soul is yours and mine; for by his art he made us heirs to all that wealth of love that was never requited, and the dreams, that for him never came true, are our precious and priceless legacy. [Illustration: JOHANNES BRAHMS] JOHANNES BRAHMS What is music? This question occupied my mind for hours last night before I fell asleep. The very existence of music is wonderful, I might even say miraculous. Its domain is between thought and phenomena. Like a twilight mediator, it hovers between spirit and matter, related to both, yet differing from each. It is spirit, but spirit subject to the measurement of time; it is matter, but matter that can dispense with space. --_Heine_ JOHANNES BRAHMS Emerson has said that, next to the man who first voices a great truth, is the one who quotes it. Truth is in the air; it belongs to all who can appreciate it; and the difference between the man who gives a truth expression and the listener who at once comprehends and repeats it, is very slight. If you understand what I say, it is because you have thought the same thoughts yourself--I merely express for you that which you already know. And so you approve and applaud, not stopping to think that you are applauding your own thought; and your heart beats fast and you say, "Yes, yes, why didn't I say that myself!" All conversation is a sort of communion--an echoing back and forth of thoughts, feelings and emotions. We clarify our thoughts by expressing them--no idea is quite your own until you tell it to another.