"He always had a horror of asking any one for credit or a loan. At a certain time he found himself out of ready money. It was Sunday, and he had not the 'wherewith' to get his breakfast on Monday morning. He had always lived retired, forcing intimacy with none, and generally mingling only where business called him. He therefore did not feel intimate enough with any one to offer to borrow, nor did he feel like asking anywhere for credit. He had, however, a small job of writing that had been sent in, for which, when done, he was to receive about twenty-five dollars. Here was Mr. Holland's resource. He began his work about seven o'clock on Sunday evening. He wrote till late. Becoming weary, and his eyelids being heavy, he lighted a spirit-lamp; and with a very diminutive French coffee-pot he prepared, and soon was sipping, a cup of coffee that no doubt would have pleased the Arabian prophet, had he been present to partake. Refreshed by this, he continued his labors until the darkness grew to gray dawn, and the dawn to full light of day. At seven in the morning the last note was written. At eight o'clock he took the work to his patron, and before nine returned with a light heart and good material for breakfast." A touching incident this, surely, but one that has had either a near or perfect counterpart in the lives of many music writers and teachers, who have often been obliged to labor in season and out of season for the bare necessaries of life. And yet how seldom it is that we are aware of the painful vigils that are kept by these gifted but toiling ones when creating the works that so much contribute to the pleasure of our leisure moments!