Great singers and, generally, all good singers, are perfectly healthy
animals with solid nerves, in which respect they differ from other
artists, with hardly an exception. They have good appetites, they sleep
soundly, they are not oppressed by morbid anticipations of failure nor
by the horrible reaction that follows a great artistic effort of any
kind except singing. Without a large gift of calm physical strength
they could not possibly do the physical work required of them, and as
they possess the gift they have also the characteristics that go with
it and help to preserve it.
It does not follow that they have no feelings; but it does follow that
their feelings are natural and healthy, when those of other musicians
are apt to be frightfully morbid. A great deal of nonsense has been
thought and written about the famous Malibran, because Alfred de Musset
was moved to write of her as if she were a consumptive and devoured by
the flame of genius. Malibran was a genius, but she was no more
consumptive than Hercules. She died of internal injuries caused by a
fall from a horse.
Margaret Donne, when she was about to go on the stage as Margarita da
Cordova, was a perfectly normal young woman; which does not mean that
she felt no anxiety about her approaching début, but only that her
actual diffidence as to the result did not keep her awake or spoil her
appetite, though it made her rather more quiet and thoughtful than
usual, because so very much depended on success.
At least, she had thought so when Logotheti had set her down at the
gate. Five minutes later that aspect of the matter had changed. Mrs.
Rushmore met her at the door of the morning room and gathered her in
with a large embrace.
'My dear child!' cried the good lady. 'My dear child!' This was indefinite, but Margaret felt that something more was coming,
of a nature which Mrs. Rushmore considered fortunate in the extreme,
and in a short time she had learned the news, but with no mention of
Logotheti's name.
Six months earlier Margaret would have rejoiced at her good fortune.
Yesterday she might still have hesitated about keeping the engagement
she had signed with Schreiermeyer; but between yesterday and today
there was her first rehearsal, there was the echo of that little round
of real applause from fellow-artists, there was the sound of her own
voice, high and true, singing 'Anges pures'; and there was the smell of
the stage, with its indescribable attraction. To have gone back now
would have been to gainsay every instinct and every aspiration she
felt. She told Mrs. Rushmore this, as quietly as she could.