What a charming creature is the enthusiastic talented girl, who is ever
trying to solve the riddle of life with a girl's avidity. How earnestly
she follows the light on her pathway! Sometimes deluded, but always in
earnest; even leaving the old roof-tree in the search for satisfaction,
often returning to it, weary and travel-stained, content to have one
little corner by the home fireside, where she finds more happiness and
rest in a day, than in her years of wandering and chasing butterflies.
It is the clear-eyed, far-seeing girl, with a singing voice, that can
thrill the hearts of her hearers, in whom we are now interested.
What a book could be written on the broken lives, the vanished hopes,
and the lost voices, of American girls in Europe!
There, where the life is alluring, and maestros paid in gold; where
Americans are looked upon as common prey by the Parisian shop-keeper,
the student finds that Art is long, and not only time, but gold is
fleeting.
There, many an enthusiastic girl possessed of ordinary talent, and led
away by vanity and the flattery of over-zealous friends, is found living
in a feverish belief in her ultimate success, and looking to her teacher
to promote her interests.
He is more often but a shark, ready to devour her, body and soul. For
he panders to her belief in his charlatanry, and flatters her vanity,
until the money is nearly gone. Not until then does she realise that no
one but herself has been deceived.
Her pride comes to her rescue, and with her voice still undeveloped, she
rushes hither and thither in her frantic endeavours to secure the
position she desires.
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.
She sang several numbers, but nothing half so beautiful as the low,
entreating tones in which she breathed out "Kathleen Mavourneen." As
the words rolled out, "It may be for years, and it may be forever," many
an eye filled with tears at the tender pathos in which she veiled the
uncertainties of the future.
Kate went to Italy with her mother (who had become a widow), and studied
under the direction of the great maestro, Lamperti. She had but few
faults to overcome, but she applied herself unceasingly. The voice is a
jealous mistress, and stands guard over every thought and action,
demanding high recompense from the being who possesses the power to
soothe or thrill a soul in darkness. Any letting down the bars of stern
discipline of the intellect, finds that vigilant sentinel inquiring the
cause.
The ear of the lover becomes aware that the divine voice has lost its
love tones; those pure heaven-born messages come to him with a harsher
sound. Then when the singer's thoughts have drifted into some dark
miasma, the sensitive instrument cannot attune itself in those dreamy
poisonous vapours, and the delicate string loses its perfect harmony.
The lover again wonders what powers of earth or air have taken
possession of that erstwhile melodious instrument, now, "like sweet
bells jangled and out of tune."
Thus it is if, from looking and listening, with hearing keen and heart
responsive, the eyes of the soul ever upward turned for inspiration (the
only attitude that makes the spirit by and by victorious), she ceases
for a moment, and, hearing the jingling of false bells, looks below; she
sees the reflection of the sun on some tinsel-robed, fair, but deluded
sister, and is attracted to her. The delights of dissipation in the
society of thoughtless, undedicated companions allure her from the path
where gleams the pure, white light of art. As she turns, thinking to
live only for a little hour with her companions, the gates of the
lighted realm, where few enter, close behind her. When she has wandered
through the pleasures, which prove to be but the shadows of reality, the
temple of that beautifully-tuned and soul-inspiring instrument is a
wreck, and the angel-voice fled. Such is the result of neglecting that
exacting sovereign, the goddess of music.
She demands the consecration of the whole self, in return for the prize
she offers. And none realised it better than Kate. So she gained the
excellence of real attainment.
After a brilliant career of seven years, she wearied of incessant
travel, and longed to make her home in some quiet corner, away from the
sound and whirl of the great busy world, and yet near enough to its
heartbeats to feel the pulsation. She found such a spot near London,
where she took her old mother, for whom she had an idolatrous love, and
where she hoped to enjoy her life in semi-seclusion for a season. She
furnished her gem of a house with rare taste, and filled it with
souvenirs of the world she had conquered. There her mother fell ill,
and demanded, in her nervous, irritable state, in which she would allow
the service of no other nurse, constant, care from Kate.
Often when Kate returned home late at night from some concert where she
had been the idol of the hour, she would sit and hold her mother in her
arms until the cold night air had chilled her to the very bone, for the
invalid could not endure a fire in the room. No murmur fell from Kate's
lips, and when the dear sufferer succumbed to the disease and passed
quietly away, her grief was overwhelming.
But joy trod on the heel of sorrow. A presence had come into her life
which grew to be a part of it.
He was one whom everybody admired; a man of culture and refinement, an
able musical critic and no mean musician.
He had won her heart, and they were soon to plight their vows sit the
marriage altar. Some weeks after her mother's death, he departed one
morning for Paris, with her kiss on his lips. In a few hours came the
news that a channel steamer had collided and gone down with all on
board. Her lover was among them!
In a week's time she had left London for the Continent; six months
later, she was seen again in the gay world of Paris: but her face was
white and wan, and her spirit broken.
Her musical studies were kept up, but her heart was not in her work; and
when one night she appeared at the Theatre des Italiens, and received an
ovation, she broke down at the end of the phrase, with stage fright.
Without ambition to rise above this misfortune, she left the stage, her
career ended.
A few weeks later, impelled by a craving for new sights and
surroundings, and a desire for rest far from the scenes of her triumphs
and disasters, she arrived in Africa.