s completeness, more unspeakably
indicating a new and masterful artist can be recorded than that first
appearance. She looked older than her years; her frame (then a mere
reed) quivered this way and that; her character dress seemed to puzzle
her, and the motion of her hands as much. Her voice was hardly settled
even within its own after conditions; and yet, juaradoxical as it may
seem, she was at ease on the stage; because she brought thither instinct
for acting, experience of music, knowledge how to sing, and consummate
intelligence. There could be no doubt, with any one who saw that
_Desdemona_ on that night, that another great career was begun.... All
the Malibran fire, courage, and accomplishment were in it, and (some of
us fancied) something more beside."

Pauline Garcia's voice was a rebel which she had had to subdue, not a
vassal to command, like the glorious organ of Mme. Grisi, but her harsh
and unmanageable notes had been tutored by a despotic drill into great
beauty and pliancy. Like that of her sister in quality, it combined the
two registers of contralto and soprano from low F to C above the lines,
but the upper part of an originally limited mezzo-soprano had been
literally fabricated by an iron discipline, conducted by the girl
herself with all the science of a master. Like Malibran, too, she had in
her voice the soul-stirring tone, the sympathetic and touching character
by which the heart is thrilled. Her singing was expressive, descriptive,
thrilling, full, equal and just, brilliant and vibrating, especially in
the medium and in the lower chords. Capable of every style of art, it
was adapted to all the feelings of nature, but particularly to outbursts
of grief, joy, or despair. "The dramatic coloring which her voice
imparts to the slightest shades of feeling and passion is a real
phenomenon of vocalization which can not be analyzed," says Escudier.
"No singer we ever heard, with the exception of Malibran," says another
critic, "could produce the same effect by means of a few simple notes.
It is neither by the peculiar power, the peculiar depth, nor the
peculiar sweetness of these tones that the sensation is created, but by
something indescribable in the quality which moves you to tears in the
very hearing."

Something of this impression moved the general mind of connoisseurs on
her first dramatic appearance. Her style, execution, voice, expression,
and manner so irresistibly reminded her fellow-performe