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I have composed a symphony for the opening of the Concert Spirituel, which was performed with great applause on Corpus Christi day. I hear, too, that there is a notice of it in the "Courrier de l'Europe," and that it has given the greatest satisfaction. I was very nervous during the rehearsal, for in my life I never heard anything go so badly.
No farce at the Palais Royal had ever developed so grotesque a denouement; no novel of Veron, of Belot, of Montepin had ever come to so sordid an ending; no Mimi, no Musette could have ever followed a line of conduct so little spirituel as that taken by Sophie Leppin. What, then; were the books wrong, and only life true? No; it was the fault of America itself.
When at length he made his debut here in the Concert Spirituel, he sang Bach's scena, "Non so d' onde viene" which is, besides, my great favorite, and then for the first time I really heard him sing, and he pleased me that is, in this class of music; but the style itself, the Bernacchi school, is not to my taste. He is too apt to fall into the cantabile.
"A charming and spirituelle Frenchwoman," Miss O'Meara goes on to say, "said of Julius Mohl that Nature in forming his character had skimmed the cream of the three nationalities to which he belonged by birth, by adoption and by marriage, making him deep as a German, spirituel as a Frenchman, and loyal as an Englishman."
You are a man of genius; I will put you on the right path. You must write an opera seria and comique, an oratorio, and every kind of thing. Any one who composes a couple of operas in Paris receives a certain sum yearly. There is also the Concert Spirituel and the Academie des Amateurs, where you get five louis-d'or for a symphony.
Carleton has been giving me a long lecture on botany; while my attention was distracted by listening to your spirituel conversation." "Well, Miss Constance?" "And I am morally certain I sha'n't recollect a word of it if I don't carry away some specimens to refresh my memory and in that case he would never give me another!"
The first is as spirituel and clever as formerly, and the second is as frank, high-spirited, and well-bred the very beau idéal of a son of the sea, possessing all the attributes of that generous race, joined to all those said to be peculiar to the high-born and well-educated. Sat a considerable time with the Duchesse de Guiche today.
If, some years ago, you had asked a Frenchman what he meant by beauty, he would have talked to you of l'air piquant, l'air spirituel, l'air noble, l'air comme il faut, and he would have referred ultimately to that je ne scais quoi, for which Parisian belles were formerly celebrated.
All the wiseacres here make such a fuss on that point! Deuce take me if I can see any difference! Their orchestra begins all at one stroke, just as in other places. It is too laughable! Raaff told me a story of Abaco on this subject. He was asked by a Frenchman, in Munich or elsewhere, "Monsieur, vous avez ete a Paris?" "Oui." "Est-ce que vous etiez au Concert Spirituel?" "Oui."
No wonder the French are spirituel, a word so different from our "spiritual," for that they are not; pre-eminently citizens of this world even the pious French. This is why on the whole they make a better fist of social life than we do, we misty islanders, only half-alive because we set such store by our unrealised moralities.
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