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The song came to an end, but after a pause the harpsichord sounded again, and the singer's voice rang out: "'Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me'" Audrey gave an involuntary cry; then, with her lip between her teeth, strove for courage, failed, and with another strangled cry sank upon her knees before a chair and buried her face in its cushions.
For one to learn to hear oneself justly and correctly requires considerable practice. The singer is placed at a natural disadvantage in listening to himself. This is due to two causes. In the first place, the direct muscular sensations of singing are so complex, and so distributed about the throat and face, that the singer's attention is apt to be divided between these and his auditory sensations.
Now suppose you wish to skate so that the critics will say, "See! this athlete docs his work as Church paints, as Darley draws, as Palmer chisels, as Wittier strikes the lyre, and Longfellow the dulcimer; he is as terse as Emerson, as clever as Holmes, as graceful as Curtis; he is as calm as Seward, as keen as Phillips, as stalwart as Beecher; be is Garibaldi, he is Kit Carson, he is Blondin; he is as complete as the steamboat Metropolis, as Steers's yacht, as Singer's sewing-machine, as Colt's revolver, as the steam-plough, as Civilization."
It is obnoxious in Alexander Smith's portrait of his hero, Hair is doubtless essential to poetic beauty, but the poet's strength, unlike Samson's, emphatically does not reside in it. The differentiating mark of the singer's face is a certain luminous quality, as of the soul shining through. In lines To a Poet Breaking Silence, he asserts,
There isn't much to see except a long, straight brown road and a most insanitary-looking tank. The village is more interesting with its queer booths. I do think it is an incongruous sight to see, as I saw this afternoon, a native, naked but for a loin cloth, plying a Singer's sewing-machine.
Ada Singer's mental attitude was, "I'll never give in, and Lucy Berry will find it out." Lucy felt comforted, but there remained now the great step of eating lunch with Alma and being punished by Ada in consequence. Her heart fluttered at the thought; but she was going to try not to think of herself at all, but to do right and let the consequences take care of themselves.
The singer looks round and only then sees an unfamiliar countenance that looks like an actor's. . . . The countenance, seeing the singer's uncovered shoulders and bare feet, shows signs of embarrassment, and looks ready to sink through the floor. "Let me introduce . . ." mutters Nikitin, "Bezbozhnikov, a provincial manager." The singer utters a shriek, and runs off into her bedroom.
In addition to their blemishes as musical tones, the faulty notes of the voice also convey to the critical listener an idea of the state of the singer's throat in producing them. Every blemish on the beauty of a vocal tone, every fine shade of quality which detracts from its perfection, indicates to the critical hearer some faulty action of the singer's vocal organs.
Falchion now rose also. She was altogether in the sunlight now. From the piano in the next room came a quick change of accompaniment, and a voice was heard singing, as if to the singer's self, 'Il balen del suo sorris'. It is hard to tell how far such little incidents affected her in what she did that afternoon; but they had their influence.
This favored the lovers, who could sit hand in hand, looking into each other's eyes; and when old Phabis, who had lost sight of them long since, at length discovered them in the park, he could see from his lurking- place as he crept closer, that his young master, after glancing cautiously round, pressed a kiss on the little singer's hair, and then on her eyes and at last on her lips.
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