here created quite a _furore_.
The ladies in the audiences were especially delighted with him; and
forgetting often, in their enthusiasm, that he was black, it seemed
that they would certainly carry him away.

Never satisfied to rest alone upon his fine natural endowments, our
young artist pushed his studies, entering the classical, the technical
domain of the great master-composers, and playing with easy, graceful,
magnetic touch, and delightfully winning expression, any of their
works. As a reader at sight of compositions the most difficult, it is
doubtful whether he had an equal in this country.

The prejudiced or incredulous, before having observed his rare powers
for reading and playing, often as a test, and sometimes with a hope to
embarrass him, placed before him some technical and very difficult
work. But the readiness with which he played the piece changed one who
had come to doubt or to scorn into a silent, deeply surprised, and
interested listener; and it was most always the case, too, that such a
one, yielding to the exquisite charm of the music, as well as to the
gentlemanly, graceful manners of the young virtuoso, became from that
time forth his warm admirer and friend.

But this brilliant artist did not confine himself to the
interpretation of the more difficult compositions for the piano. At
the time of which I am writing,--twenty years ago,--his success as a
performer before miscellaneous audiences could not have been so great,
had he not possessed, in a most pleasing degree, a versatility of
talent. His _repertoire_ was an extensive one, and decidedly "taking"
in the varied character of its excellent pieces. Many of the latter
were simple, yet always purely musical, and of course highly pleasing.

Before the public, Mr. Luca was, in the best sense, a successful
performer; while, in those smaller and finer artistic circles where
the more delicate and higher musical forms were appreciated, he
delighted and even instructed his listeners, receiving their warmest
praise.

_True_ art is ever noble and ennobling: in its domain its devotees are
known and valued, not by the color of their faces, but by the depth of
artistic love that they feel, and by the measure of success to which
they attain. And so the subject of this sketch, although of a
complexion quite dark, and often suffering from the coldness, if not
the insults, of those afflicted with "color-phobia," was yet ever
sought after and cordially re