File:Famous American songs (1906) (14580314879).jpg

Identifier: famousamericanso00kobbrich (find matches)
Title: Famous American songs
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Kobbé, Gustav, 1857-1918
Subjects: Songs, English -- History and criticism National songs -- United States
Publisher: New York, T. Y. Crowell & co
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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lish barytone. Then Svengali, impatiently shoving him off the piano 8i famow amettcan ^ong)^ stool, played a masterly prelude tothe song; and Gecko—as Du Mau-rier describes it—cuddling lovinglyhis violin and closing his upturnedeyes, played that simple melody asit probably never had been playedbefore—such passion, such pathos,such a tone! — and they turned it andtwisted it, and went from one key toanother, playing into each othershands, Svengali taking the lead; andfugued and canoned and counter-pointed and battledored and shuttle-cocked it, high and low, soft and loud,in minor, in pizzicato, and in sordino—adagio, andante, allegretto, scherzo—and exhausted all its possibilitiesof beauty; till their susceptible audi-ence of three was all but crazed withdelight and wonder; and the master-ful Ben Bolt, and his over-tender Alice,and his too submissive friend, and hisold schoolmaster so kind and so true,and his long-dead schoolmates, andthe rustic porch and the mill, and the82
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THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH, ABOUT 1845 •Ben OBolt slab of granite so gray, were all mag-nified into a strange, almost holy po-etic dignity and splendor quite un-dreamed of by whoever wrote thewords and music of that unsophisti-cated little song, which has touchedso many simple British hearts thatdont know any better. Whoever wrote the words! Fiftyyears before Du Maurier penned thepassage I have quoted, Ben Boltwas written by an American. WhenTrilby was published, the author ofBen Bolt still was living; he lived,in fact, until 1902, surviving Du Mau-rier eight years. But although thepoem had been published in a periodi-cal, had been sung all over the Eng-lish-speaking world, and had formedthe pivotal point in one of the greatestsensations in literary history, its au-thor never received a penny for it.Moreover to his dying day he resentedits popularity as compared with thereception accorded his maturer writ- 83 jfamoug ametican ^ongg ings, which he knew to be better. I met him once by appoin

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