Women of distinction/Chapter 71

CHAPTER LXXI.

MRS. RACHEL M. WASHINGTON.

This is one of the many ladies of whom Boston may well be proud. Graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, she has ever been active as an instructor to the young with whom she came in contact, as well as an earnest searcher after knowledge in the line of her chosen profession. It is said that she has possibly done more to cultivate a love and admiration for music among the prominent citizens of Boston than any other one person.

The following lines are taken from a letter written by her to a friend:

As I read the lives of the great composers, and think of their sacred devotion to the art dearer to them than their own lives, I feel anxious for the time to come in our history when a child like Mozart shall be born with soul full of bright melodies; or a Beethoven, with his depth and tenderness of feeling; or a Handel, lifting us above this earth until we shall hear the multitude of voices joining in one vast song—"Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" Nor is this impossible. Our history, it seems to me, has but just begun. All the past is but sorrow and gloom, and here and there a bright ray to bid us hope. * * * I hope they (the colored youth of the country) will early develop a love and taste for the beautiful in musical art; that soon we shall be proud to mention those whose names, through their works, shall be immortal.

This extract is sufficient proof of her strong, active mind and soul full of love for her race and the beautiful in musical art.