Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... THE EIGHTH LESSON IT is the loveliest morning imaginable. Would that I could wander through woods and fields! But I must first have my usual chat with my readers, and take rest later on, if I am to lay before them an accurate account of my experiences. The programme of my pupils' recital yesterday bore the names of twenty pupils, among whom were two young married ladies; two, however, were ill on the day previous, so only eighteen sang. An' audition, ' or public hearing, is a source of great excitement and responsibility for the teacher; he or she is dependent upon the mental and physical condition, and upon the skill, of the more or less nervous debutantes, who, at the end of the school-year, are summoned, in presence of hundreds of listeners, to give an account of their powers and attainments. These annual events occur in the Salle Erard. The weather was almost unbearable, and I left my house in low spirits, fearing that the temperature might put several of my pupils hors de combat. Happily, on my arrival, I beheld eighteen young women, like good and valiant soldiers, assembled to greet me in the artistes' foyer, and my depressed spirits rose again. Let me set down at once that the success of the "audition" quite exceeded my expectations, and that the public received with the greatest enthusiasm the pupils intended for the concert-room, and distinguished particularly the students of the Opera Class by clamorous and repeated recalls. The arrangements incidental to an "audition" are not easily perfected; in the framing of the programme one encounters numberless obstacles. No one will be first on the list, and no one last. So this time, to avoid reproachful looks and tears, I had recourse to the alphabet, as they do in the Paris...
