her to execute it.  She tried, but became discouraged, and said, ‘I can not.’  In an instant the Andalu-sian blood of her father rose.  He fixed his flashing eyes upon her:  ’What did you say?’ Maria looked at him, trembled, and, clasping her hands, murmured in a stifled voice, ‘I will do it, papa;’ and she executed the passage perfectly.  She told me afterward that she could not conceive how she did it.  ‘Papa’s glance,’ added she, ’has such an influence upon me that I am sure it would make me fling myself from the roof into the street without doing myself any harm.’”

Maria Felicia Garcia was a wayward and willful child, but so generous and placable that her fierce outbursts of rage were followed by the most fascinating and winning contrition.  Irresistibly charming, frank, fearless, and original, she gave promise, even in her early youth, of the remarkable qualities which afterward bestowed such a unique and brilliant cachet on her genius as an artist and her character as a woman.  Her father, with all his harshness, understood her truly, for she inherited both her faults and her gifts from himself.  “Her proud and stubborn spirit requires an iron hand to control it,” he said; “Maria can never become great except at the price of much suffering.”  By the time she had reached the age of fifteen her voice had greatly improved.  Her chest-notes had gained greatly in power, richness, and depth, though the higher register of the vocal organ still remained crude and veiled.  Fetis says that it was on account of the sudden indisposition of Madame Pasta that the first public appearance of Maria in opera was unexpectedly made, but Lord Mount Edgcumbe and the impressario Ebers both tell a different story.  The former relates in his “Reminiscences” that, shortly after the repair of the King’s Theatre, “the great favorite Pasta arrived for a limited number of nights.  About the same time Konzi fell ill and totally lost her voice, so that she was obliged to throw up her engagement and return to Italy.  Mme. Vestris having seceded, and Caradori being for some time unable to perform, it became necessary to engage a young singer, the daughter of the tenor Garcia, who had sung here for several seasons....  Her extreme youth, her prettiness, her pleasing voice, and sprightly, easy action as Rosina in ‘Il Barbiere,’ in which part she made her debut, gained her general favor.”  Chor-ley recalls the impression she made on him at this time in more precise and emphatic terms:  “From the first hour when Maria Garcia appeared on the stage, first in ‘Il Barbiere’ and subsequently in ‘Il Crociato,’ it was evident that a new artist, as original as extraordinary, was come—­one by nature fairly endowed, not merely with physical powers, but also with that inventive, energetic, rapid genius, before which obstacles become as nothing, and by the aid of which the sharpest contradictions become reconciled.”  She made her debut on June 7, 1825, and was immediately engaged for the