To illustrate the power of the natural voice, it will but be necessary to call attention to what occurs in almost any concert wherein one of America's own daughters, now "_prima donna assoluta_," is the main performer. She sings a grand aria, the work of an Italian master, highly artistically and perfectly rendered. Musicians are delighted; the public applauds. She reënters, and now the _donna_, changed to a simple American, sings one of England's or America's own songs. The audience, which before had been languidly listening, at the first notes of this song is stirred, electrified, and now listens intently. When she ceases to sing, there is a storm of applause, as to almost shake the house. Where the artistic sense alone had been engaged before, the hearts and the souls of her hearers have now been touched. Yet I have seen the eccentric Von Buelow deliberately take out his handkerchief after such a demonstration and wipe the "desecration" of the "ditty" from the keys of the piano which had accompanied the song, before he deigned to dignify it with one of his "classic" renderings. No doubt he had much contempt for it all: the song, the singer, and the public. The treasures of that "ditty," however, were of an order similar to those hidden within the breast of every one composing that audience. The pearls, floating through the room from the lips of one of its own daughters, had, with a sympathetic touch, stirred it to its very depths, while the foreign "aria" had left it comparatively cold. Supposing an _Italian_ singer were to sing an English "aria" in the English language to an Italian audience, and, after that, were to produce one of her own simple Italian songs, would not the effect be the same? Would Italians, in fact, care to listen to her English interpretation, no matter how artistically rendered? It is an entirely different thing, however, for German or Italian singers to come here and sing their own songs in their own native tongue. Though foreign, the production is genuine. They sing what belongs to them, that in which they live, breathe; they sing their own soul. Such a performance we can comprehend and appreciate, even as we view a foreigner with interest, and honor him for that which is great and good in him, and for which he is distinguished. We can soon _feel_ what is genuine and also that which is not; the former being nature's own production, the latter imitated, forced--unnatural. Italians do not sing English or German songs; why should Germans and English-speaking people sing Italian and French songs, to the exclusion, very often, of their own?