which delighted his hearers, and they shouted “Bravissimo!” with all the abandon of an enthusiastic Italian audience.  A flash of chivalry animated the rude hearts of the brigands, for they restored to Garcia all his personal effects, and a liberal share of the wealth which they had confiscated, and gave him an escort to the coast as a protection against other knights of the road.  The reader will hardly fail to recall a similar adventure which befell Salvator Rosa, the great painter, who not only earned immunity, but gained the enthusiastic admiration of a band of brigands, by whom he had been captured, through a display of his art.

The talent of Pauline Garcia for the piano was so remarkable that it was for some time the purpose of her father to devote her to this musical specialty.  She was barely more than seven on the return of the Garcias to Europe, and she was placed, without delay, under the care of a celebrated teacher, Meysenberg of Paris.  Three years later she was transferred to the instruction of Franz Liszt, of whom she became one of the most distinguished pupils.  Liszt believed that his young scholar had the ability to become one of the greatest pianists of the age, and was urgent that she should devote herself to this branch of the musical art.  Her health, however, was not equal to the unremitting sedentary confinement of piano practice, though she attained a degree of skill which enabled her to play with much success as a solo performer at the concerts of her sister Maria.  Her voice had also developed remarkable quality during the time when she was devoting her energies in another direction, and her proud father was wont to say, whenever a buzz of ecstatic pleasure over the singing of Mme. Malibran met his ear, “There is a younger sister who is a greater genius than she.”  It is more than probable that Pauline Garcia, as a singer, owed an inestimable debt to Pauline Garcia as a player, and that her accuracy and brilliancy of musical method were, in large measure, the outcome of her training under the king of modern pianists.

Manuel Garcia died when Pauline was but eleven years old, and the question of her daughter’s further musical education was left to Mme. Garcia.  The celebrated tenor singer, Adolphe Nourrit, one of the famous lights of the French stage, who had been a favorite pupil of Garcia, showed great kindness to the widow and her daughter.  Anxious to promote the interests of the young girl, he proposed that she should take lessons from Eossini, and that great maestro consented.  Nourrit’s delight at this piece of good luck, however, was quickly checked.  Mme. Garcia firmly declined, and said that if her son Manuel could not come to her from Rome for the purpose of training Pauline’s voice, she herself was equal to the task, knowing the principles on which the Garcia school of the voice was founded.  The systems of Rossini and Garcia were radically different, the one stopping at florid grace of vocalization, while the other aimed at a radical and profound culture of all the resources of the voice.