A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“Ah, genius; but I am only a girl.”

“Handel was a genius, and when he found that the public did not want his operas, he showed himself quite ready to give them what they did want. And yet there were as many fools and coxcombs in his day as there are in ours. My dear sister, it is for you and me to do what we can without minding what foolishness those who hear us may speak, being incapable of understanding us. When I was at Florence I was present one night at a great concert at which Maestro Pugnani was to play. Just before he began, one of the princes entered the theatre, and began to talk and jest in a loud tone with an officer who was in attendance. It was clear that he was not quite sober, and he continued to make himself offensive even after the Maestro had begun to play. We were all very indignant, and we felt certain that Pugnani would retire from the stage. He did not do so. When he had played his first movement, he looked up to the royal box, and then he smiled down at us. I saw the look that was upon his face, a look of determination—the look which is on the face of a master of fence when he is about to engage a tyro. In a second he had drawn his bow across the strings, and the jest that the prince was in the act of uttering remained frozen on his lips. We saw that—we saw the Maestro smile as he went on playing; he had the prince in his grasp as surely as if he had had his hand on the fellow’s throat; he kept him enthralled for a quarter of an hour, and then, without a pause, he went on to the Andante. Before he had reached the second bar the prince was in tears. We saw that—yes, for a few bars, but after that we could see nothing, for we also were in tears. At the conclusion of that incomparable performance the Maestro left the stage, smiling his smile of triumph. He had conquered that scoffer by the sheer power of his genius. When he appeared later on he was wearing on his breast the diamond order that the prince had worn.... Dear sister, let that be an example to you. When you find that you have scoffers among your hearers, you should feel yourself stimulated, rather than discouraged. You should remember that you are the greatest singer in the world, and that to be a great singer is to be able to sway at will the souls of men. You sent me a copy of Dr. Goldsmith’s lovely poem. You remember that line in it, ‘Those who went to scoff remained to pray’! That is how it should be when you are singing.”

“How can you liken me to these men—all of them geniuses?” she cried with some measure of impatience. “Their life is their music; they live in a world of their own, and it is a world the air of which I have never breathed. It is the breath of their nostrils to face a great audience: I have been told that they feel miserable if they see a single vacant chair. But my life—— Ah, if I could but be allowed to live in a cottage!”

“What folly!” he cried. “And you intend to marry this old man in order to be released from the necessity to sing?”

“Is it an unworthy reason?” she asked. “I think ’tis not so. I shall be a good wife to Mr. Long.”

“Oh, what folly! You—a good wife! Heavens! a girl with such a voice as you possess talking of becoming a good wife—a good wife—in a cottage, counting the eggs, milking the cows!” He was almost fierce in his scorn. “Is it possible that this is the sum of your ambition!”

“I ask for nothing better.”

“As if there were any scarcity of good wives in the world! Any girl may become a good wife, but only one in a generation can become a great singer, and I tell you that you may be the greatest singer that lives. ’Tis not I alone who have said it, though I have heard the best in Italy and I am capable of judging; no, ’tis your rivals who have said it—and Mr. Garrick. Would he have offered such sums to get you to sing at Drury Lane if he had not known that you were without an equal? And you talk about a cottage! I tell you, my sister, if you were to give up singing you would be guilty of a crime—the crime of spurning the greatest gift that Heaven can bestow upon a human being!”

“Ah, no!” she said. “If Heaven had designed that I should sing in the presence of all those frivolous people who pay their money to see me as well as to hear me, should I not have been endowed also with that talent which your maestro was able to exercise? Should I feel that shrinking from the platform which I now feel every time I have to sing? Should I not feel the pride which comes to every great musician on stirring an audience to its depths?”

“You tell me that you feel not that pride?—that you remain unmoved, no matter how greatly you have moved your hearers?”