Books › Ole Bull: a memoir; with Ole Bull's 'Violin notes' and A. B. Crosby's 'Anatomy of the violinist', 1897 › scan 27
Scan 27
Ole Bull: a memoir; with Ole Bull's 'Violin notes' and A. B. Crosby's 'Anatomy of the violinist', 1897
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1had him elected an active member of the Tuesday club, of whose performances he had before been but a clandestine and often ingeniously hidden listener; and, through his mother's intercession, it was arranged that Paulsen should give him lessons regularly.
3About this time a Frenchman arrived in Bergen with violins for sale. One of them, bright red in its color, gained the boy's heart at first sight, and he pleaded with his father till he consented to buy it. It was purchased late in the afternoon, and put away in its case. Ole slept in a small bed in the same apartment with his parents, and the much-coveted instrument was in the adjoining room. Ole Bull, telling this incident in later years, said, 1—
5I could not sleep for thinking of my new violin. When I heard father and mother breathing deep, I rose softly, and lighted a candle, and in my night-clothes did go on tiptoe to open the case, and take one little peep. The violin was so red, and the pretty pearl screws did smile at me so! I pinched the strings just a little with my fingers. It smiled at me ever more and more. I took up the bow and looked at it. It said to me it would be pleasant to try it across the strings. So I did
71 This story is given as written by Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, who heard Ole Bull tell it when he first came to the United States. Mrs. Child always preserved better than any one else his peculiar manner of narration.
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