The career of the late Dr Selle, although quiet, has been a singularly interesting one. An admirable raconteur, he has left many an anecdote in the memories of his friends, though his inimitable manner of telling them renders it impossible to reproduce them. Some facts about his early days will, however, be appreciated by those of a later generation who were happy enough to know him.

In 1845, Dr Selle was organist of her Majesty's Chapel at Hampton Court, and to this period we may trace the origin of his energies, which, by the way, were unsuccessful, many years afterwards, in 1883, in fact, to bring about the Sunday opening of the public library, of the Committee of which he was a member. There was much correspondence in the Times in 1852, about the disorderly behaviour of Sunday visitors to Hampton Court Palace. Dr Selle wrote and denied this, stating, 'The conduct of the masses is orderly, quiet, and respectable, nor do I ever remember seeing a drunken character.'

It is interesting to know that the public are indirectly indebted to Dr Selle for the right they at present enjoy of free access to the Great Hall at Hampton Court. At the time of the Crimean War, when the doctor was organist at the Palace, he arranged a concert in aid of the Crimean Relief Fund; and as it was to be a big affair, was for time at a loss to find a suitable place in which to hold it. At length, he thought of the Great Hall, which was then used as a store for general lumber. It was cleared of rubbish, the concert was duly held, and after a few weeks the hall was opened to the public.

In 1863 we find Dr Selle publishing articles, entitled, 'Hints to Musical Students who are desirous of appreciating high art,' which are full of indications of the doctor's knowledge of his subject, and the a thorough enthusiasm with which he approached it. Only a man whose soul was in his work could, for example, have written the following: – 'The master of the true manner of expression must possess a mind sufficiently acute and extensive to embrace and compare an infinity of analysis, not apparent to common minds; an imagination sufficiently ardent to seize firmly upon its subject, sufficiently fertile to represent it under every kind of image; a soul sufficiently capacious to grasp every object, and sufficiently impassioned to embrace all these points that have any analogy with it; but, above all, he must possess a heart, alive to all the tenderness, as well as the impetuosity of the passions. It is thus only that his works can be infused with that power of expression (which he has received as Nature's gift) that enables him to impart unto them life and identity.' A little later in the same year we find him speaking in no flattering terms, in the Castle Rooms, of 'the modern rubbish which passes current for music' – a criticism which will hold as well today as it did then. Again, a year or two later he is deploring the fact that music should necessarily be so mechanical 'that for the concourse of sweet sounds that takes the prisoned soul and laps it in Elysium, we should be indebted to mere finger work; or, worse still, to the revolutions of a barrel stuck thick with pins.'