Later on come some notes headed: “La force, l’activité.” “Il avait dans sa vie la force et l’activité!” When we recollect the ebullient activity of Peter Ilich’s musical career, and his unflagging energy, we cannot help giving to these fortuitous entries, if not a predictive significance, at least that of a conscious homage to the qualities he most admired. His patriotic ardour found vent in four poems, dated 1847, of which the following is a specimen: Terre! _apresent_ tu _est_ loin de moi Je ne te _voi_ plus, o patrie cherie! Je t’embrasse. O! pays _adorée_ Toi, oh Russie _aimé_ _Vien! vien! aupre_ de moi Toi, place où je suis né Je te salut! oh, terre cherie Longtemps quand je suis né Je n’avais ni memoire, ni raison Ni de dons pour parler Oh, je ne savais pas que ma Patrie est Russie! He also attempted an historical essay in verse on Joan of Arc, whom he had learnt to know from Masson’s _Les Enfants célèbres_. It is entitled: THE HEROINE OF FRANCE On t’aime, on ne t’oublie pas Heroïne si belle! Tu as sauvé la France Fille d’un berger! Mais qui fait ces actions si belles! Barbare anglais vous ont tuée, Toute la France vous admire Tes cheveux blonds jusqu’à tes genoux Ils sont très beau Tu étais si célèbre Que l’ange Michel t’apparut. Les célèbres on pense à eux Les mechants on les oublie! After 1848 there are no more poetical effusions, perhaps because Fanny was no longer there to preserve such documents; but more probably because the boy had just begun to discover in music a new medium for the expression of his sentiments. * * * * * At Votinsk there were no musicians, with the exception of a few indifferent amateur pianists. The mother sang a little, but only played the piano for her children to dance to; at least, from the time of her marriage, we never hear of a more serious _répertoire_. No other member of the household could do even as much. Unfortunately Fanny was not at all musical, so that the place of music master to the future composer fell to the lot of an inanimate object--an orchestrion which his father brought home with him after a visit to St. Petersburg. This orchestrion was a superior one, with a varied programme. Peter Ilich himself considered that he owed his first musical impressions to this instrument, which he was never tired of hearing. A composition by Mozart had a particular fascination for him, and his passionate worship of this master dates from this period of childhood, when Zerlina’s “Aria,” or any melody from _Don Juan_, played by the orchestrion, awoke in him “a beatific rapture.” Thanks to this instrument, he first became acquainted with the music of Bellini and Donizetti, so that even the love of Italian opera, which he cherished all his life, may be said to have originated in the same way.