his prima donna. What were his surprise and delight in finding that the
_debutante_ was the loveliest who had come forward for years, and
the possessor of an almost unparalleled voice. Of tall and majestic
presence, a dazzling complexion, large beautiful blue eyes, and features
of ideal symmetry, she was one to entrance the eye as well as the ear.
Her face was so flexible as to express each shade of feeling from grave
to gay with equal facility; and indeed all the personal characteristics
of this extraordinary woman were such as Nature could only have bestowed
in her most lavish mood. Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality,
embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, from G to F, and so
powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones, which thrilled through
every fiber of the hearer. Full, rich, and magnificent beyond any other
voice ever heard, "it bore no resemblance," said one writer, "to any
instrument, except we could imagine the tone of musical glasses to be
magnified in volume to the same gradation of power." She could ascend
at will--though she was ignorant of the rules of art--from the smallest
perceptible sound to the loudest and most magnificent crescendo, exactly
as she pleased. One of her favorite caprices of ornament was to imitate
the swell and fall of a bell, making her tones sweep through the air
with the most delicious undulation, and, using her voice at pleasure,
she would shower her graces in an absolutely wasteful profusion. Her
greatest defect was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty
and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched: she
never touched the heart. She could not, like Mara, thrill, nor, like
Billington, captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy;
she simply astonished. "She was a florid singer, and nothing but a
florid singer, whether grave or airy, in the church, orchestra, or
upon the stage." With a prodigious volume and richness of tone, and a
marvelous rapidity of vocalization, she could execute brilliantly the
most florid notation, leaving her audience in breathless amazement; but