for him. Her pride, which
was high, had been wounded by the royal criticism, and she carried
herself with as much _hauteur_ as could go with respect. The King
regarded her with a cool stare, without any gesture of salutation, and
Mile. Schmaeling amused herself with looking at the pictures. "So you
are going to sing me something?" at last said royalty with military
abruptness.

The figure of the Prussian King as he sat by the piano was anything but
prepossessing. A little, crabbed, spare old man, attired with Spartan
simplicity, in a faded blue coat, whose red facings were smudged brown
with the Spanish snuff he so liberally took; thin lips, prominent jaws,
receding forehead, and eyes of supernatural keenness glaring from under
shaggy brows; a battered cocked hat, and a thick cane, which he used as
a whip to belabor his horse, his courtiers, or his soldiers as occasion
needed, on the table before him--all these made a grim picture.

Mlle. Schmaeling answered his curt words with "As your Majesty pleases,"
and instantly sat down at the piano. As she sang, Frederick's face
relaxed, and taking a huge pinch of snuff, he said, "Ha! can you sing
at sight?" (then an extraordinary accomplishment). Picking out the
most difficult bravura in his collection, he bade her try it, with the
remark, "This, to be sure, is but poor stuff, but when well executed
sounds pretty enough." The result of the royal examination convinced the
King that Mlle. Schmaeling had not only a magnificent voice, but was a
thorough artist. So the daughter of the poor musician of Cassel, after
many years of hard struggle and ill success (for she had sung in almost
every German capital), was made Frederick's chief court singer at the
age of twenty-two, and the road to fortune was fairly open to her. At
the age of four years she had showed such aptitude for music that she
quickly learned the violin, though her baby fingers could hardly span
the strings. She always retained her predilection for this instrument,
and maintained that it was the best guide in learning to sing. "For,"
said she, "how can you best convey a just notion of slight vibrations in
the pitch of a note? By a fixed instrument? No! By the voice? No! But,
by sliding the finger on the string, you instantly make the most minute
variation visibly as well as audibly perceptible." She owed her success
entirely to the charm of her art.

Elizabeth Schmaeling's personal appearance was far from striking.