Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/169

Rh 'long," "Jenny's Coming o'er the Green," "Beautiful Dreamer," "Maggie by my side," "I see her still in my Dreams," "Nelly Bly," "Come where my love lies dreaming," "Fairy Belle," etc.

Their music was irresistible; it seemed to flash from heart to heart, like the electricity upon the wire. There is nothing in old fables telling of the mysterious influences of music more marvellous than the magic by which the songs of Foster made themselves popular. It was not the result of puffery or advertising. The greater number of the best of his songs, after he came to New York, were composed in the back room—the bar-room—of an old grocery store at the northwest corner of Hester and Christie streets. He used to lounge there at a board table, and when his money became low, he would take a piece of brown wrapping paper, and prepare to compose a song. He first hummed the tune to himself; it may have been ringing in his head for two or three days before, but the immediate necessity of the hour had not compelled him to put it to paper. He would draw his bars and jot down his notes, and then, still humming it, compose the words. The air came first—the air being by far the more important. Yet the words always bore intimate relation to, and were consonant with, the spirit of the music. There were a number of words for which he had a peculiar fancy, especially "dreaming" and "melody," which occur in his songs with remarkable frequency. The name he loved best was Jenny—the name of his wife. He loved to sing his own songs, and his favorite was "Jenny's Coming o'er the Green." Beside writing words and music, he sometimes attempted to sketch the illustrated covers necessary to published music, but was not very successful. One day he took a sketch of "Willie's Return," for the cover of the song "Willie, We Have Missed You," to the engraver, who, grievously mistaking its character, said, "Ah! another comic song, Mr. Foster?" Foster tore the sketch to fragments, and never attempted anything of the kind afterward. One of his last songs was "Willie has Gone to the War." He died too soon to give us any very popular war-song; and others have occupied if not filled his place. He married, in Pittsburg, a daughter of the late Dr. McDougall. He has a daughter living. During his life Foster must have written as many as two hundred and fifty songs. Upon some of his songs he obtained large percentages, but during the latter part of his life he would sell them for a few dollars, though one of them was sometimes sufficient to make a small fortune for its publisher. It mattered little to him so long as he was able to sustain life.

He deserved, and might have received, if he had desired, the honor which society would have been glad to lavish upon one who had so lightened the burden of daily life, so soothed the souls of the sick and weary, so intensified the language of love, sorrow, and