“that was the scene of the tragedy which made me an artist. I have told you that my father was a schoolmaster. He was the kindest of men, but he had moods of frightful severity — moods which subsided as quickly as they arose. At the age of three, just as I was beginning to talk easily, I became, for a period, subject to fits; and in one of these I lost the power of speech. I, Alresca, could make no sound; and for seven years that tenor whom in the future people were to call ‘golden-throated,’ and ‘world-famous,’ and ‘unrivalled,’ had no voice.” He made a deprecatory gesture. “When I think of it, Carl, I can scarcely believe it — so strange are the chances of life. I could hear and understand, but I could not speak.

“Of course, that was forty years ago,