Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/170

160 mirth. His music is for all who have music in their souls; it is the heart and not the educated ear that interprets it.

It is related that an English poet while on a journey, seeing a country serving maid reading his poems, exclaimed: "This is fame." But Foster could not have walked in the street—could not have attended a place of amusement, or an evening entertainment where music was one of the attractions—could scarcely have travelled to the remotest country place, without being likely to hear his own music there. It was played on every kind of instrument, sang and whistled by young men and maidens, business men and matrons, old men and children, by all classes of society, and in all sorts of scenes and places. Yet, but few of those who so loved the music, ever knew anything of its author. Was it an exquisite pleasure to hear thus on every hand, in all his walks, the songs that had origin with himself? or was it rather a painful thought that so few recognized him, or honored him for the beautiful strains that had found their sympathetic way into every heart, and set every tongue involuntarily trilling their music?

Among the popular composers of music of the present day are J. R. Thomas, composer of "Down by the River Side I Stray," "The Cottage by the Sea," "Happy be thy Dreams," "Beautiful Isle of the Sea," "Down by the Gate," "Fishes in the Sea," Tis but a Little Faded Flower," etc.; George F. Bristow; Mrs. Parkhurst, composer of "Sweet Evelina," etc.; Mathias Keller, composer of the "American Hymn," "Mother, oh Sing me to Rest," "Fairest and Rarest," "Afloat on the Tide," "Angel Lottie," etc.; George F. Root, composer of "The Battle Cry of Freedom," "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," "Just before the Battle, Mother," "The Vacant Chair," "Hazel Dell," "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower," etc.; Henry Work, composer of "Babylon is Fallen," "Grafted into the Army," etc.; Charles Carrol Sawyer, composer of "Mother would Comfort Me," etc.; William B. Bradbury, composer of "Marching Along," etc.; Henry Tucker, composer of "When this Cruel War is over," etc.; Theodore F. Seward, composer of "Rally Round the Flag, Boys," "Fling it to the Breeze," "The Land we Love," etc.; Buckley, composer of "I'd choose to be a Daisy," "The Captain with his Whiskers," "I am Dreaming," "Come in and Shut the Door," etc.; Alice Hawthorne, which is the nom de plume of Sep. Winner, of Philadelphia, composer of "Listen to the Mocking Bird," "What is Home without a Mother," etc.; Charles F. Thompson, composer of "Who will Care for Mother now," etc.; D. D. Emmett, composer of "Dixie," and many other banjo songs; Joseph W. Turner, composer of "Mary of the Wild Moor," etc.; Mr. Woodbury, composer of "Be Kind to the Loved Ones at Home," etc.; J. Ernest Perrin, composer of "Beware," etc.

Although the air of a song is actually its important feature, yet,