n in Berlin. The critics
wrote such eulogies that I almost blush to read them. People quite
unknown to me would go from town to town to hear me, and I would see
them at Rotterdam or Utrecht smiling up at me. I have never sung to such
adorable audiences. They seem to understand all languages, and a "Claire
de Lune" sung in French seems to please them as much as Schubert's
magnificent "Allmacht."

The "coffee pause" half way down the program, was quite a shock to me
the first night, but I soon grew to look for it, and enjoyed the smell
of the strong smoking coffee the waiters used to carry round on trays to
the audience. It was rather disturbing, however, to have to watch the
waiters finish up the contents of the pots, at the back of the hall,
while I began on the second half of the program. Evidently to them the
coffee, and the audience, were of first importance, and the mere singer
quite secondary; all of which is point of view.

My sister and I lived at The Hague, and Holland is so delightfully
small that we could nearly always return there, after the evening's
concert in another town. I went back in the spring for another series of
recitals and felt that I was returning to old friends. I was offered a
tour to Java, and would love to have undertaken it, but could not see my
way clear just then.

In December I was in Berlin for a week or two, and Harder sent me word
to come and sing for Mr. Percy Pitt of Covent Garden. The two contracts
I had held so far had been closed with a minimum of delay and trouble,
and now I was to make the biggest one of my career in the same simple
way. I was not in the best of voice when I sang for Mr. Pitt, but I sang
the Siegfried _Erda_, and was disgusted with myself for singing so
badly. He asked me if I were ready to sing the list of leading roles
which he read to me, and on my answering in the affirmative engaged me
on the spot; proving, to me at least, that successful or unsuccessful
_Vorsingen_ and even _Gastspiele_ have very little to do with most
engagements. In the case of a singer of any reputation at all, the
Director has usually made up his mind pretty well beforehand what he is
going to do. If he wants you he takes you, even if you have sung badly
that particular time, and if he does not want you, nothing that I have
heard of can make him engage you.

This contract was for the following spring. We were to give the "Ring"
of Wagner, three times, and Arthur Nikisch was to con