You do not mean--you will not tell me--that with all your love of music, you were insensible to the miraculous powers of that man?
I suppose they were miraculous, as I heard every one say so round me; but I listened to him as to any other musician, for the sake of the pleasure to be derived from music, not for the sake of wondering at difficulties overcome, and impossibilities made possible--they might have remained impossibilities for me. But insensible I was _not_ to the wondrous charm of his tone and expression. I was thrilled, melted, excited, at the moment, but it left no relish on the palate, if I may use the expression. To throw me into such _convulsions_ of enthusiasm, as I saw this man excite here and on the continent, I must have the orchestra with all its various mingling world of sound, or the _divine_ human voice breathing music and passion together; but this is a matter of feeling, habit, education, like all other tastes in art.
I think it was during our third visit to Frankfort that Madame Haitzinger-Neumann was playing the _gast-rolles_, for so they courteously denominate the parts filled by occasional visitors, to whom, as guests, the precedence is always given. Madame Haitzinger is the wife of Haitzinger, the tenor singer, who was in London, and sung in the Fidelio, with Madame Devrient-Schroeder. She is one of the most celebrated actresses in Germany for light comedy, if any comedy in Germany can be called light, in comparison with the same style of acting in France or England. Her figure is rather large--
Like most of the German actresses--for I never yet saw one who had attained to celebrity, who was not much too _embonpoint_ for our ideas of a youthful or sentimental heroine--
Devrient is all impassioned grace; but I think that in time even _she_ will be in danger of becoming a little--how shall I express it with sufficient delicacy?--a _little_ too substantial.
No, not if a soul of music and fire, informing a feverish, excitable temperament, which is to the mantling spirit within, what the high-pitched instrument is to the breeze which sweeps over its chords,--not if these can avert the catastrophe; but what if you had seen Mademoiselle Lindner, with a figure like Mrs. Liston's--all but spherical--enacting Fenella and Clärchen?