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ame apprehensive. Yet I kept at it; and by the time I was a year old I could sing it so that it was quite recognisable. I do not remember this period, of course, but my mother often told me about it later, and I am sure she was not telling a fairy story.
There is, after all, nothing incredible or miraculous about the fact, extraordinary as it certainly is. We are not surprised when the young thrush practises a trill. And in some people the need for music and the power to make it are just as instinctive as they are in the birds. What effects I have achieved and what success I have found must be laid to this big, living fact: music was in me, and it had to find expression.
My other grandmother, my father's mother, was musical, too. She had a sweet voice, and was the soprano of the church choir.
Everyone knew I was naturally musical from my constant attempts to sing, and from my deep attention when anyone performed on any instrument, even when I was so little that I could not reach the key-board of the piano on tip-toe. That particular piano, I remember, was very old-fashioned--one of the square box-shaped sort--and stood extremely high.
One day my grandmother said to my mother:
"I do believe, Jane, if we lifted that baby up to the piano, she could play!"
Mother said: "Oh, pshaw!"
I was three then, and a persistent baby, already detesting failure. I never liked to try to do anything, even at that age, in which I might be unsuccessful, and so learned to do what I wanted to do as soon as possible.
My mother was gifted in many ways. She used to paint charmingly; and has told me that when she was a young girl and could not get paint brushes, she made her own of hairs pulled from their old horse's tail.
My maternal grandfather was not at all musical. He used to say that to him the sweetest note on the piano was when the cover went down! Yet it was he who accidentally discovered a fortunate possession of mine--something that has remained in my keeping ever since, and, like many fortunate gifts, has at times troubled as much as it has consoled me.
One day he was standing by the piano in one room and I was playing on the floor in another. He idly struck a note and asked my mother:
"What note is that I am striking? Guess!"
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