c,--the laugh of Figaro, not of Mephistopheles.

We went to dine with him last week. He invited to meet us Madame S-----,
who has this year conquered all opposition, and reigns alone, the great
S-----; Mr. T--------, a pianist of admirable promise; your friend M.
Savarin, wit, critic, and poet, with his pleasant, sensible wife; and
a few others, who, the Maestro confided to me in a whisper, were
authorities in the press. After dinner S----- sang to us, magnificently,
of course. Then she herself graciously turned to me, said how much she
had heard from the Maestro in my praise, and so and so. I was persuaded
to sing after her. I need not say to what disadvantage. But I forgot my
nervousness; I forgot my audience; I forgot myself, as I always do when
once my soul, as it were, finds wing in music, and buoys itself in the
air, relieved from the sense of earth. I knew not that I had succeeded
till I came to a close, and then my eyes resting on the face of the
grand prima donna, I was seized with an indescribable sadness, with a
keen pang of remorse. Perfect artiste though she be, and with powers in
her own realm of art which admit of no living equal, I saw at once that
I had pained her: she had grown almost livid; her lips were quivering,
and it was only with a great effort that she muttered out some faint
words intended for applause. I comprehended by an instinct how gradually
there can grow upon the mind of an artist the most generous that
jealousy which makes the fear of a rival annihilate the delight in art.
If ever I should achieve S-----'s fame as a singer, should I feel the
same jealousy?--I think not now, but I have not been tested. She went
away abruptly. I spare you the recital of the compliments paid to me
by my other auditors, compliments that gave me no pleasure; for on
all lips, except those of the Maestro, they implied, as the height of
eulogy, that I had inflicted torture upon S-----. "If so," said he, "she
would be as foolish as a rose that was jealous of the whiteness of a
lily. You would do yourself great wrong, my child, if you tried to vie
with the rose in its own colour."

He patted my bended head as he spoke, with that kind of fatherly
king-like fondness with which he honours me; and I took his hand in
mine, and kissed it gratefully. "Nevertheless," said Savarin, "when the
lily comes out there will be a furious attack on it, made by the
clique that devotes itself to the rose: a lily clique will be form