“It was an obstacle, but I simply would not allow it to discourage me, and did my best, just the same as if I could see. My mother had taught me to think, and so I made thought and memory take the place of eyes. I acquired a kind of habit of mental projection which has enabled me to see models in my mind, as it were, and to consider their good and bad points intelligently. Besides, I cultivated my powers of observation to the utmost in other respects. Even now I take an occasional trip of observation, for I like to see what others are doing, and so keep abreast of the progress of the age. But I must stop, or I shall get to ‘talking shop,’ the thing I declined to do at first. The main thing for a boy is to have a good mother, to heed her advice, to do his best, and not get a ‘swelled head’ as he rises—in other words, not to expect to put a gallon into a pint cup or a bushel into a peck measure. Concentration, decision, industry and economy should be his watchwords, and invincible determination and persistence his rule of action.” LVI A Great Vocalist Shows that Only Years of Labor Can Win the Heights of Song. OF the five internationally famous singers—Melba, Calvé, Nordica, Eames and Lehmann—none is a greater favorite than Madame Lillian Nordica. She has had honors heaped upon her in every music-loving country, including her own, America. Milan, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and New York in turn accepted her, and the music-lovers of those cities received her with a _furore_ of praise. Jewel cases filled with bracelets, necklaces, tiaras and diadems of gold and precious stones, attest the unaffected sincerity of her admirers in all the great music-centers of the world. She enjoys, in addition, the distinction of being one of the first two American women to attain to international fame as a singer in grand opera. When Madame Nordica was in New York fulfilling her part in the most brilliant operatic season the city had ever known, she lived in sumptuous style at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where I met her by appointment. She accepted the statement that the public is interested in the details of her career as most natural, and was pleased to discuss the philosophy of a singer’s success from the view-point of its difficulties. “You would like to know how distinction in the field of art is earned? Well, it is not thrust upon anyone. The material for a great voice may be born in a person—it is, in fact—but the making of it into a great voice is a work of the most laborious character.” “Is the matter of nationality of any advantage to an aspirant?” “You wish to know——” “Whether, in some countries, the atmosphere is not very favorable to a beginner;—the feeling of the public and the general support given to music not particularly conducive to the musical development of, we will say, a young girl with a promising voice.”