malady, as in the case of the American soprano, Miss Sarah Anderson, who but a fortnight later arrived at Carnegie Hall, New York, to sing with us in "The Messiah." She complained that, though perfectly well before dinner, she had been attacked as she left her house with a fit of sneezing so violent that it left her unable to perform. A specialist was called who pronounced it acute laryngitis, the sudden onslaught of which presently robbed Miss Anderson of the ability to utter a note. By chance, there was a teacher of singing in the artist's room who said that he had a pupil in the audience who knew the part, though she had never sung it in public, and would take the place of Miss Anderson, who had herself been engaged owing to the illness of Miss Esther Palliser. The newcomer sang most acceptably, having bridged a gap which is but seldom provided against. Indeed it is remarkable, and altogether to their credit, that concert singers so seldom disappoint their audiences.

CHAPTER XXXIV

COMPOSER AND CRITIC

Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,

Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore.

- Byron.

THOUGH Ignace Paderewski, musician and statesman, did not conduct, he assisted in preparing the first production of his opera "Manru" on February 14, 1902, at the Metropolitan, and was present at its American première. I sang the very arduous part of Urok in this extraordinary work, Bandrowski assuming the title rôle as he had abroad, Madame Sembrich the beautiful character of Ulana, supported by Madame Louise Homer, Miss Fritzi Scheff, and others. Altogether "Manru" was given nine times that season in New York and other cities. It was so full of musical color and action and the drawing power of the composer's name was so great that it not only made money but was seriously considered by Mr. Grau for revival the year following.

Paderewski had a musical idiom of his own, used freely throughout this work. Nevertheless he was accused of plagiarizing from Verdi, from Bizet, and from Wagner. He was greatly hurt by the charge, and at the banquet given him by the opera management and associated artists several New York critics actually twitted him face to face on the similarity of his work to that of his predecesHe replied that he had wittingly appropriated no musical material that did not belong to him, and pointedly inquired if an architect is blamed for putting windows in a house because others before him have done the like.

A man highly placed once said to me as he looked over his newspaper, "Is it not amazing that Paderewski, a mere piano player, should become the Premier of Poland! Think of a man like that," he said scornfully, "being allowed to hold a position of such prominence." My acquaintance was greatly surprised when I told him that Paderewski was one of the finest linguists in Europe, one of the best informed men in the world, and a statesman whose political acumen was acknowledged by the principal figures of the Peace Conference.

It is extraordinary how generally musical reviewers attempt to impede, rather than assist, artists in their work, and to destroy rather than uphold well-established reputations. It is so easy to speak in dispraise of anything that, in order that the public may be better instructed regarding those who entertain them, I heartily recommend to all who criticize what Swinburne calls "the noble art of praising."

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I sang that season six times in four oratorios, Liszt's "St. Elizabeth," Gounod's Redemption," Verdi's Requiem," and Rossini's "Stabat Mater "; in ten miscellaneous concerts, several of which put upon me the greater part of the work; in ten recitals of my own in which I did all the work, including two or three performances of Strauss's "Enoch Arden "; and in fourteen performances of opera, Wagner's "Rheingold," "Siegfried," and "Lohengrin," and Paderewski's "Manru "; making forty performances in all, including nine entire works and a list of sixty songs, and involving travel away from New York to eighteen cities between Florida and Canada.

for

Fortunately, such is the power of will over ill even my robust strength was severely taxed - that I was enabled, thanks to the powers that be, to emerge safely from the ordeal and sail for Europe in my usual good health, entering immediately upon another busy season on the other side of the Atlantic after having given 119 performances in my native land.

The season that followed in London differed in no particular respect from the many preceding it. I took my usual rôles at Covent Garden and added to my repertory the part of Rudolf in an opera called "Der Wald" (The Forest), a work already performed on the Continent. It was composed by the talented Englishwoman Ethel M. Smythe, and brought prominently to the fore the gifted Olive Fremstad, an American of Norse descent and German training, whom I had met a few years previously at the house of Madame Wagner at Bayreuth and with whom earlier in the London season of 1902 I sang in "Tristan und Isolde" and in "Lohengrin," her interpretation of Brangäne and Ortrud giving promise of the great things she was later to achieve as a Wagnerian singer.

As Miss Fremstad began to come into prominence, various stories were told of her. Some years previously she had been studying in Germany with Lilli Lehmann, who was then married to Paul Kalisch, the tenor, and it is said that the elder artist, becoming annoyed with Miss Fremstad, took a book of songs from the piano and flung it at her head, with the result that the fair Olive burst into tears and left the house enraged. As she went she passed by Mr. Kalisch, sitting at a table in great dejection with his face in his hands; looking up with tears in his eyes he said, "Olive, what is the matter?" To which Olive angrily replied, "I will never come here again; she has thrown a book at my head." The tenor to comfort her said, "Never mind, my dear, she does the same to me."

That season in London there appeared a woman who had already made a great success in Paris at the Opéra Comique and who was presently destined to become world famous, none other than Mary Garden, who sang the title rôle in Massenet's "Manon," giving London a taste of the thrill which later moved the whole artistic world.

During my residence in England I had many times been touched to the heart by the admiration of the public for American artists and by the sincere desire on the part of the British nation as a whole to make friends and to stay friends with its great offshoot across the water. I knew personally our ministers and ambassadors, Bayard, John Hay, and Choate, who was loved for his American wit and gallantry, for had he not said that if he could not be himself, he would prefer to be Mrs. Choate's second husband? There seems to be in the make-up of the Britons little place for jealousy. They are such good sportsmen that they admire talent wherever they see it and reward Americans as they would their own people with frank affection.

I possess in an old statuette of Benjamin Franklin, a curious exemplification of this earlier British feeling. Many of these figures of the celebrated colonial statesman and sage had been sold, when his attitude during his diplomatic negotiations with France caused him to be as heartily disliked as he had before been beloved, and the demand for his statuettes immediately fell off. In or

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