In fact, it was his specific function to preside at the Chickering, the Weber, the Steinway, according to the facilities offered by the particular home--for we moved about in rotation. This service, which we presently came to consider sufficient in itself, dispensed him from exhibiting his nature in so articulate a thing as actual vocal utterance. This he was quite opposed to: he would never even try a hymn in church. But he could accompany; he could improvise; he could modulate; he could transpose any simple air. The ease and readiness with which he did all this made less obvious--indeed, almost imperceptible--his fundamental unwillingness to abandon himself before others (especially if members of his own circle) to any manifestation that might be taxed with even a remote emotionalism. And yet, at that very time, he was laying the foundations of a claim to be that broad and vague thing called an "artist." Even as early as this, apparently, he was troubled by two contradictory impulses: he wanted to be an artist and give himself out; and he wanted to be a gentleman and hold himself in. An entangling, ruinous paradox. This comment on Raymond's musical inclinations and musical services may require a bit of shading: I believe that, after all, he never quite cared for music unless he had, in all literalness, his "hand" in it. He never liked to hear any one else play the piano, still less the violin; concerts of all sorts were likely to bore him; and he never really rose to an understanding of the more recondite and elaborate musical forms: to have his fingers on the keyboard--especially when improvising in a secure inarticulateness--was his great desideratum.