Scan 20
Camilla: a tale of a violin, being the artist life of Camilla Urso, 1874
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 10. See the scan on archive.org.
1colored light slanting across the springing arches. The scene, the music, everything affected her. Then that song on the violin. It was beautiful—and—if she could. No—she never, never could—and it was all a dream. She was even reluctant to leave for home after the service was over and wanted to linger in the vast, dim church and dream it all over again.
3If she only could play like that—if she could have a real violin, all her own and play on it, why, that would be just too wonderfully grand and splendid for anything. There were not words in the French language that could express the pleasure it would give her. She could not speak of it. It was too good to talk about.
5For several days she thought about it and dreamed of it and wondered if it would do to tell her father and ask him to give her a violin. At last the secret became unbearable and on creeping into her mother's bed before daylight one morning for her regular petting she ventured to lisp to her mother that she wanted a violin—"a real one, to play upon herself."
7The morning star faded away quickly, and there was only the dull grey dawn in the child's sky. Her mother treated her request with laughter and put out the little Camilla's hope with a flat refusal.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.