Jack, now near his twelfth birthday, looked into this heavily-engraved piece of music, and at once his attention concentrated …

He set the music up on the stand, and began his attack.  To my ear, the result was a confusion of sound most unpleasing.  It was so to him, for he stopped, frowned more savagely than before, and made a fresh start.  He got very little further before breaking down.  But he would not be defeated.  Again and again he started, and at last a smile of pleasure lit his face.  He turned to me and said, “I know!  This isn’t the same as all that!”  And he nodded contemptuously at the contents of the bamboo stand, which contained, no doubt, Sidney Smith’s ‘Tarantella’ somewhere in the three- or four-inch pile stored on-end in the dark corner.

I cannot explain what attracted my twelve-year-old brother to this sonata of Beethoven, the only piece of worth-while music in our home.