" I thought to myself that I had
made a discovery, and that all was vanity. Well, we thanked the
singer gravely enough, and went on, smiling and grimacing, to talk
local gossip. A few minutes later, a young girl, very shy and
painfully ingenuous, was hauled protesting to the piano. I could
see her hands tremble as she arranged her music, and the first
chords she struck were halting and timid. Then she began to sing--
it was some simple old-fashioned song--what had happened? the world
was somehow different; she had one of those low thrilling voices,
charged with utterly inexplicable emotion, haunted with old
mysterious echoes out of some region of dreams, so near and yet so
far away. I do not think that the girl had any great intensity of
mind, or even of soul, neither was she a great performer; but there
was some strange and beautiful quality about the voice, that now
rose clear and sustained, while the accompaniment charged and
tinged the pure notes with glad or mournful visions, like wine
poured into water; now the voice fell and lingered, like a clear
stream among rocks, pathetic, appealing, stirring a deep hunger of
the spirit, and at the same time hinting at a hope, at a secret
almost within one's grasp.
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