The life of Ethelbert Nevin Author:Vance Thompson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TWO "THE MILK MAID Unameup-on ou, JvoDm, ynumeup-on uou now, CHAP T E R T W O "THE MILK MAID" " ARLY in the autumn of 1881, Ethelbert Nevi... more »n then a sen- sitive, delicate lad of eighteen, left his home for the first time and set out alone for Boston, the "centre of music in America," he thought. He carried a single letter of introduction to a Boston banker, who "turned the cold shoulder" on him. So quite unfriended, he was left to make his own way in the social and musical world of the Eastern city. He had always a wonderful personal charm. As a child and as a man there was a singular winsomeness about him, which gained him friends everywhere. It is difficult to describe that peculiar quality; it was made up of gentleness, of frankness and of unselfishness; but there was above all a sympathetic interest in the lives of others which was magnetic in its attractiveness. A little of this is seen in his diaries and in the many letters he wrote to his kin, his friends, his business associates. There is not a line, not a phrase which does not show this essential sweetness and generosity. There is not one unkind word. Of no other man, who took so wide a career in public life — for from childhood he was before the public — could it be said that he never made an enemy. There was no taint of vanity in him; there was no shadow of jealousy. There was a high and very beautiful love for humanity, for men and women and children; and bringing to his friends tenderness and sympathy, he was never met with anything but love. This statement is scrupulously exact. (Even that discourteous banker had become his friend, had he not wholly ignored the timid lad.) Left wholly to his own resources Ethelbert moved from his hotel to a boarding-house, at 101 Boylston Street. The first th...« less