The Fifth String

he said, with evident intention, looking almost directly at her.

``Then one must come who speaks in nature's tongue,'' she continued.

``And the soul will then awake,'' he added earnestly.

``But is there such a one?'' she asked.

``Perhaps,'' he almost whispered, his thought father to the wish.

``I am afraid not,'' she sighed. ``I studied drawing, worked diligently and, I hope, intelligently, and yet I was quickly convinced that a counterfeit presentment of nature was puny and insignificant. I painted Niagara. My friends praised my effort. I saw Niagara again--I destroyed the picture.''

``But you must be prepared to accept the limitations of man and his work,'' said the philosophical violinist

``Annihilation of one's own identity in the moment is possible in nature's domain--never in man's. The resistless, never-ending rush of the waters, madly churning, pitilessly dashing against the rocks below; the mighty roar of the loosened giant; that was Niagara. My picture seemed but a smear of paint.''

``Still, man has won the admiration of man by his achievements,'' he said.

``Alas, for me,'' she sighed, ``I have not felt it.''

``Surely you have been stirred by the wonders man has accomplished in music's realm?'' Diotti ventured.

``I never have been.'' She spoke sadly and reflectively.

``But does not the passion-laden theme of a master, or the marvelous feeling of a player awaken your emotions?'' persisted he.

She stood leaning lightly against a pillar by the fountain. ``I never hear a pianist, however great and famous, but I see the little cream-colored hammers within the piano bobbing up and down like acrobatic brownies. I never hear the plaudits of the crowd for the artist and watch him return to bow his thanks, but I mentally demand that these little acrobats, each resting on an individual pedestal, and weary from his efforts, shall appear to receive a share of the applause.

``When I listen to a great singer,'' continued this world-defying skeptic, ``trilling like a thrush, s