As it lay there, it recalled the incidents of twenty years ago.
This violin he once held in high esteem; it had the place of honour on his wall, with the bow beside it.

It had been left him by a friend, an old clerk, [Norw.

"klokker," almost answering to the Scotch precentor, but a klokker, in addition to leading the singing in church, has to read the opening prayer and to assist the priest in putting on his vestments.] at his home up in the north, who had taught him to play, and had evidently been one of those musical geniuses who are never fully appreciated in this world.
David loved to give play to his fancy, not only upon this violin--he had a good ear, and had learnt not a little--but also about it: where it really came from, and how old it might be?
He would exceedingly have liked an indistinct mark inside to mean that it was "possibly a Cremona"; it was one of his weak points, and this room for conjecture was evidently, in his eyes, one of the excellences of the violin.
David had a small collection of what he called classical music, long compositions which he played from the notes.

They were not much to my fancy, and always struck me as being of a piece with what was strange in his manner when he posed as a logician.

When he played them it was more like severe, mental, school exercise than anything his heart was in; and he played as correctly as he argued or wrote.
The times when classical music and critical conversations ruled in his room, were certainly those in which he felt his mind most in balance.