“Crawford’s statue seems to be listening to the music,” my mother whispered, as the organist struck the keys and a lovely air of Palestrina’s rolled from the organ, shaking the souls of the men and women gathered in this temple of the arts. Music must have its commercial side, like all other arts; but in those days, if it were there, it was hidden. The men who built the Music Hall, and who made Boston the musical center it still remains, were true servants of Apollo. Mr. Dwight had access to Music Hall at all times. So devouring was his thirst for music that it was not enough to hear all the concerts by the Handel and Hayden, Harvard Musical, Cecilia, and other societies; he must hear all the rehearsals too. Not finished performances, like the so-called Friday afternoon rehearsals of the present Boston Symphony orchestra, but the working rehearsals, when Carl Zerrahn, our favorite leader, schooled his musicians, scolded his chorus, and made them repeat difficult passages over and over again. Mr. Dwight’s attitude towards his fellow man was one of gentle toleration, with one exception,--for those who set up false gods in the house of music, he had no mercy. He drove them from the temple with the scourge of his bitter pen. _Dwight’s Journal_ arrived at our house every Saturday; its contents were discounted by those who had sat beside the oracle at the week’s concerts and already knew his opinion of artists and composers. It developed, even to my intelligence, that the oracle was but yet a man. When he wrote about a pretty woman, like that bewitching girl pianist, Adelaide Topp, his style showed a warmth that was lacking when he spoke of the black-avised Fraulein Osterauer, with nothing but her technique to recommend her. During intermissions, or at close of concerts, we went to the greenroom, to meet the artists. In this way, I have shaken hands with most of the great artists of the time. To see Christine Nilsson close, and catch the strange glint in those eyes of heavenly blue, was an unforgettable experience. Her pale gold hair was more beautiful even than on the stage; her beauty, like her voice, spoke of her own northland, gleaming ice peaks, frozen fiords, diamond-bright winter stars, moonlight upon snow. Madame Essipoff--Russian, I think--though not beautiful, had a sympathetic personality. “No woman ever had such a left hand for the piano,” our Nestor said of her. We highly approved of Camilla Urso, then in her early fame, and Theresa Carreño, a beautiful young woman, who fingered her instrument with the grace of a Fra Angelico angel. The oracle set his face sternly against certain male virtuosi; musical fireworks were not tolerated by _Dwight’s Journal_. When I hung entranced upon Ole Bull’s playing of some composition, written expressly to show the amazing dexterity of his bowing, the oracle frowned and exclaimed, “Claptrap!”