touch, at least, of
that peculiar sensation with which a single chord, floating from a
window as we pass, stops us and holds us spellbound--a touch of that
pleasant suspense with which we sit before the curtain in the theatre
while the orchestra is still tuning! Or am I wrong? Can the soul stand
more deeply in awe of everlasting beauty than when pausing before any
sublime and tragic work of art--Macbeth, OEdipus, or whatever it may be?
Man wishes and yet fears to be moved beyond his ordinary habit; he feels
that the Infinite will touch him, and he shrinks before it in the very
moment when it draws him most strongly. Reverence for perfect art is
present, too; the thought of enjoying a heavenly miracle--of being able
and being permitted to make it one's own--stirs an emotion--pride, if
you will--which is perhaps the purest and happiest of which we are
capable.

This little company, however, was on very different ground from ours.
They were about to hear, for the first time, a work which has been
familiar to us from childhood. If one subtracts the very enviable
pleasure of hearing it through its creator, we have the advantage of
them; for in one hearing they could not fully appreciate and understand
such a work, even if they had heard the whole of it.

Of the eighteen numbers which were already written the composer did not
give the half (in the authority from which we have our statement we find
only the last number, the sextet, expressly mentioned), and he played
them in a free sort of transcription, singing here and there as he felt
disposed. Of his wife it is only told that she sang two arias. We might
guess, since her voice was said to be as strong as it was sweet, that
she chose Donna Anna's _Or sai, chi l'onore_, and one of Zerlina's two
arias.

In all probability Eugenie and her fiance were the only listeners who,
in spirit, taste, and judgment, were what Mozart could wish. They sat
far back in the room, Eugenie motionless as a statue, and so engrossed
that, in the short pauses when the rest of the audience expressed their
interest or showed their delight in involuntary exclamations, she
gave only the briefest replies to the Baron's occasional remarks.

When Mozart stopped, after the beautiful sextet, and conversation began
again, he showed himself particularly pleased with the Baron's comments.
They spoke of the close of the opera, and of the first performance,
announced for an early date in November; and when s