were published, that
the discretion he exercised (or delegated) in the omission of certain
passages was not allowed to prevail to the exclusion of others. Such
partial omissions would not indeed alter the whole tone and character of
the book, but might have mitigated the shock of painful surprise with
which it was received by the society he described, and by no one more
than some of those who had been on terms of the friendliest intimacy
with him and who had repeatedly heard him assert that his journal would
never be published in the lifetime of any one mentioned in it.

I consider that I was quite justified in using even this naughty child's
threat to prevent Miss Tree from doing what might very well have ended
in some dangerous and ludicrous accident; nor did I feel at all guilty
toward her of the species of malice prepense which Malibran exhibited
toward Sontag, when they sang in the opera of "Romeo and Juliet," on the
first occasion of their appearing together during their brilliant public
career in England. Malibran's mischievousness partook of the force and
versatility of her extraordinary genius, and having tormented poor
Mademoiselle Sontag with every inconceivable freak and caprice during
the whole rehearsal of the opera, at length, when requested by her to
say in what part of the stage she intended to fall in the last scene,
she, Malibran, replied that she "really didn't know," that she "really
couldn't tell;" sometimes she "died in one place, sometimes in another,
just as it happened, or the humor took her at the moment." As Sontag was
bound to expire in loving proximity to her, and was, I take it, much
less liable to spontaneous inspiration than her fiery rival, this was by
no means satisfactory. She had nothing like the original genius of the
other woman, but was nevertheless a more perfect artist. Wanting weight
and power and passion for such parts as Norma, Medea, Semiramide, etc.,
she was perfect in the tenderer and more pathetic parts of Amina, Lucia
di Lammermoor, Linda di Chamouni; exquisite in the Rosina and Carolina
of the "Barbiere" and "Matrimonio Segreto;" and, in my opinion, quite
unrivaled in her Countess, in the "Nozze," and, indeed, in all rendering
of Mozart's music, to whose peculiar and pre-eminent genius hers seemed
to me in some degree allied, and of whose works she was the only
interpreter I ever heard, gifted alike with the profound German
understanding of music and the enchanting Itali