CAMILLA:
A TALE OF A VIOLIN.
BEING THE ARTIST LIFE OF
CAMILLA URSO.
LORING, Publisher,
Cor. Washington and Bromfield Streets,
BOSTON.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
A. K. LORING,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Rockwell & Churchill, Printers and Stereotypers,
122 Washington Street, Boston.
The intelligent reader, on opening a newbook, asks why it was written,—what excusehas it for existence. In this particular casethe author has more reasons than it is worthwhile to repeat. If there is any one thing thatis attracting the general attention of theAmerican people, it is the art of music. It is agood sign. It shows we are getting beyond themere tree-felling and prairie-clearing stages ofour existence, and coming to something better.This true “Tale of a Violin” has to do withmusic. It is the story of a real musical life;not wholly American, and therefore instructive.It has much, also, to do with our people andcountry and our own times, and is therefore[iv]interesting and home-like. It has to do withmethods of teaching music in foreign countries;and for the student this artist-life is full ofvaluable suggestions. All of this can be properlysaid, because it is the artist-life of aperson now living among us. These are theexcuses for its existence.
The facts and incidents were supplied byMadam Camilla Urso herself at such straymoments of leisure as could be found during abusy concert season at Boston, in the monthsof January and February, 1874; and the workwas done at such spare moments as the writercould find in the midst of journalistic cares.Such events as could be noted in one eveninghaving been written out, they were read aloudbefore Madam Urso and others, and whenbrought up to the exact truth in every detail,and fully approved by such persons as wereentitled to an opinion, were given to theprinter.
[v]So the book came to be. If it leads onereader to see the value of a life devoted toart,—if it helps one lonely student strugglingfor a musical education, by the splendid exampleof a life of toil and poverty crowned bya great reward,—the work will not be whollyvain, nor will it want excuse for being.
The author would express his thanks for thekind assistance of the Urso family of NewYork, and Mr. John S. Dwight and others,of Boston.
The Author.
Boston, September, 1874.
About thirty miles from the sea, on the River Loire,in France, stands the quaint, sleepy old town of Nantes.The Erdre and the Sevre, two smaller streams unitewith the Loire just here and the town is spread out inan irregular fashion over the islands, the little capesbetween the rivers, and the hills that stand roundabout. The old part of the town is on the hill-sideand occupies the two islands called Freydean andGloriette, the more modern city has spread