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120 than ever blacksmith toiled in the smithy, and I had been at times on the point of starvation. Truly it looked as though my old father was right and it was a beggarly trade.

"But one thing I had learned, and the knowledge was worth all the hardships of those Russian days. I had learned to know my own powers and my own deficiencies. I recognized the need of cultivation. I went to Milan and placed myself under Chevalier Francesco Lamperti, the famous master. I might almost say that I worked day and night.

"I studied with Chevalier Lamperti for a year. At the end of that time I secured an engagement to sing the first tenor roles at La Scala.

"I made my début in 'Faust.' It was my first success, and I may be pardoned for dwelling a moment on that night—a night that comes only once in a singer's lifetime, when, after years of difficult labor and long discouragement, success comes royally, suddenly, bringing in its train fame and fortune.

"Before the first act was over the audience was cheering as only an Italian audience can cheer. To the manager it meant fortune; to me—it is hardly necessary to say what those cries of 'Bravo, Campanini!' meant to the unknown tenor.

"It is easy to write of one's failures, but I do not think that any one finds it easy to write of his successes. And then the story lacks picturesqueness. There are fifty ways of starving, but, after all, there is only way of dining."  

The great musicians have been noted for their openhandedness and generosity, and some carried it to the extreme of the spendthrift. Prominent among those who devoted large sums to charity were Liszt, the wonderful pianist, and the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind. 