Friendless, moneyless, and alone: what can she do?
A singer’s life is emphatically a mixture of fulfilled hopes and bitter disappointments.
A famous teacher in Paris says to his pupils:
“Before starting out on your career, make for yourself two pockets; one very large, and the other exceedingly small; the large one for the snubs, and the small one for the money.”
Talent is one thing, but management is another, and without the latter, talent goes begging. Art may become a classic in the hands of talent, but the singer must depend largely upon the manager (often ungrammatical of speech, and arbitrary of manner), if she would know practical success and be known of the world. Kate Darcy had both tact and talent, and the gift of knowing how to use them.
Her childhood was passed in the atmosphere of the theatrical world in New York City, where her father was a violinist, and earned his bread by the sweep of his bow.
When yet a child, she developed great musical talent, and possessed that rarest and most delightful of all voices, a rich contralto.
At fifteen the child was a rising artist, studying day and night, until, at the age of seventeen, being graceful and well developed, she became a leading contralto of an English Opera Company. Her voice grew in strength and richness, and with the growth of the voice came ambition to study under the best masters. That will-o’-the-wisp of art drew her on to Italy, to prepare herself to enter the lists of fame and win a high niche in the temple of song.
She felt that she could conquer anything. She believed in herself—a very necessary requisite for youth, when talented and ambitious. There were no “perhaps’s” or “might be’s” crystallised in the amber of her belief. She was vividly conscious that she possessed the great gift of a rare voice, and did not doubt that somewhere in the world it would be appreciated, and made to yield the wealth which Love always wants, in order to bestow gifts and comforts on its beloved.
On her last appearance on the concert platform in her native city, previous to her departure for Italy, she bore herself with such unaffected simplicity, and seemed so earnest in her efforts, that everyone felt like breathing a benediction for her future success; they realised that the goal she aimed at was only to be reached by years of labour, and by the patient pursuit of opportunities.