"This summer I asked a distinguished singer and teacher of Philadelphia in what language the 'Scarlet Letter' was sung in that city. She replied, 'Oh, German, of course.' 'Did you hear it?' I asked. 'Yes, and I enjoyed it very much, and it was sung in German,' she replied. 'It said in English on the programme,' I said. 'Well, if I was fooled, a great many more were fooled--beside myself, all our party thought so too. What are you going to do about it?' Gounod says: 'I did not like Italian singing; their tones were attacked so differently from the French method of singing that it was unpleasant at first, but I went again and again, for I could not stay away. I enjoyed it so much.'" This is what Frau Johanna Gadski had to say in an interview printed in _Werner's Magazine_: "I have never had any lessons in acting. The director of the Choral Opera told me at the outset that it was better to act by feeling when singing than by instruction. If one studies only acting and singing, one is not always natural. That is the reason why one who does not speak German does not understand the German people and their spirit, is not a German, and cannot sing the Wagner rôles. One must have the German spirit. Sometimes you write here in your papers that German singers cannot sing. I think they sing German rôles very well. One must sing, act, and, above everything, feel at the same time, and then one can speak to the heart of the listener." Singing in a foreign tongue is, and must be, and always will be (until these things are more thoroughly understood), to a large extent, simply mechanical. Until then, the soul-stirring depth (_der Zauber_) of the native composition will always be wanting. The Anglo-Saxon race has been altogether too dependent upon European continental nations for its examples, its support, and its development in _all_ branches of art. This has been more particularly the case in regard to music and song. Though German music, for obvious reasons, which give Germans the preponderance on this field of art, ranks first among nations, still there should be among English-speaking nations a greater native development thereof in harmony with the national expression.