Life — November 5, 1903 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Charm of the Overheard. W HY is it that the legitimate conversa- tions of our associates, to which we have harkened from the beginning, and which we are predestined to follow slack’ to the end, should so often fail to interest us, Whereas the interrupted remarks we over- hear, and which were never meant for our ears, fill us with the liveliest curiosity and) concern? The breaking off of a serial story is a trial to most men’s minds; but we know that another month will bring another num- ber; the inevitable breaking off of a causcrie in which we have no share fills us with a sense of hopeless and irremediable loss. | once overheard an old English lady say with slow emphasis to a friend, “It is a charming book, a charming book. It is just the kind of a book you would want to give to your maker’ and for fifteen years I have peculated in vain as to what that volume was. Apart from the manifest indiscretion of giving any book to one’s dressmaker, and thus withdrawing her attention from} one’s clothes, the only appropriate literature | can think of is the instructive history of nias and Sapphira, and that has ceased to charm, \ man waiting patiently at the glove counter of a New York department store one young shop-woman say to another, she handed down a box of gloves, “Maria told him downright she'd have nothing more to do with him; and she called him a poison faced adder, he gripped her in the waltz scandalous. his was all! Customers clamored for tention, and the confidence ceased at this) int. But the force and richness of the} age, the liveliness of the allusion, capti-| d the hearer's soul. He confessed that, rs afterwards, when he was waltzing with decorous reluctance under the compell- ing eye of his hostess, memories of Maria's partner would assail him, and he would find himself envying the adder the mysterious | nature of his enthusiasm. | It sometimes happens that fortune favors us beyond our deserts or our desires, and the conversation to which we have no right to isten, but which we cannot well help hear- ing, goes on as tranquilly in a railway car- | riage, or on a steamer deck, as though we} were not in close and helpless proximity.| English travelers are particularly exhaustive | in their confidences, and particularly in-| different to their surroundings. In one hour, on a Como boat, I have learned a whole} family history, full of purely domestic fe: tures. How Dan had been sent to school at} Lausanne, because he was so troublesome, nd the school so cheap; and how Connie (a/ sister-in-law, I think) made the ‘astle” most unpleasant place of residence; and how laura with her three children came to stay a weck, just when Granny was dying, which was, to . inconvenient; and how (he trouble between Harold and his wife lay entirely in the bringing up of the children. | st this point the details became too inti- mate for repetition, though there was no question of withholding them from my ears. | felt like a fellow countryman who once traveled from Bordeaux to Paris in the com- pany of a young Englishwoman, her sister, urse and child. “I entered that railway riage,” he said, “an innocent American bachelor. I left it capable of running a day nursery, an infant school, or a mother's congress,”" | Agnes Repplier. MUSIC—" One of the fine arts, or arts of beauty and expression.” Staxvarp Dictionary. Piano playing is an art rich in picasure-giving resources, and the inventors of the Angelus attempted to make, and have made, an instrument which permits an artistic per- formance. Most people know that since the Angelus was introduced many imitators have sprung up. Fach and every one of them lacks the vital distinguishing feature of the Angelus, The Phrasing Lever. By this wonderful device immediate and absolute control of the instrument is ob- tained. When you have seen the Angelus Phrasing Lever—a little ivory tablet under the performer's right hand—you will understand why no other piano player can be suc- cessfully compared a moment with the Angelus. The Angelus Orchestral possesses still another exclusive feature—charmingly voiced organ reeds, which may be used as an accompaniment whenever desired. These reeds may be used separately, if preferred, making the Angelus Orchestral a complete instru ment by itself. The Wilcox & White Co. 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