It was his vocation to discover and to train voices.  His definite work in music was to help perpetually to rebuild for the world that ever-sinking bridge of sound over which Faith aids itself in walking-toward the eternal.  This bridge of falling notes is as Nature’s bridge of falling drops:  individual drops appear for an instant in the rainbow, then disappear, but century after century the great arch stands there on the sky unshaken.  So throughout the ages the bridge of sacred music, in which individual voices are heard a little while and then are heard no longer, remains for man as one same structure of rock by which he passes over from the mortal to the immortal.

Such was his life-work.  As he now paused and listened, you might have interpreted his demeanor as that of a professional musician whose ears brought tidings that greatly astonished him.  The thought had at once come to him of how the New York papers once in a while print a story of the accidental finding in it of a wonderful voice—­in New York, where you can find everything that is human.  He recalled throughout the history of music instances in which some one of the world’s famous singers had been picked up on life’s road where it was roughest.  Was anything like this now to become his own experience?  Falling on his ear was an unmistakable gift of song, a wandering, haunting, unidentified note under that early April blue.  He had never heard anything like it.  It was a singing soul.

Voice alone did not suffice for his purpose; the singer’s face, personality, manners, some unfortunate strain in the blood, might debar the voice, block its acceptance, ruin everything.  He almost dreaded to walk on, to explore what was ahead.  But his road led that way, and three steps brought him around the woody bend of it.

There he stopped again.  In an embrasure of rock on which vines were turning green, a little fellow, seasoned by wind and sun, with a countenance open and friendly, like the sky, was pouring out his full heart.

The instant the man came into view, the song was broken off.  The sturdy figure started up and sprang forward with the instinct of business.  When any one paused and looked questioningly at him, as this man now did, it meant papers and pennies.  His inquiry was quite breathless: 

“Do you want a paper, Mister?  What paper do you want?  I can get you one on the avenue in a minute.”

He stood looking up at the man, alert, capable, fearless, ingratiating.  The man had instantly taken note of the speaking voice, which is often a safer first criterion to go by than the singing voice itself.  He pronounced it sincere, robust, true, sweet, victorious.  And very quickly also he made up his mind that conditions must have been rare and fortunate with the lad at his birth:  blood will tell, and blood told now even in this dirt and in these rags.

His reply bore testimony to how appreciative he felt of all that faced him there so humanly on the rock.