Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/360

 352 ADELAIDE PHILLIPS. were often distasteful to her, she held her profession in honor, and loyally resented all imputations cast upon it. " The actual work behind the scenes," she used to say, " leaves no time for the sort of things people imagine ; we are too busy, often too anxious, to attend to anything but our parts. The heroes and the heroines of the opera are seldom the lovers they enact ; often quite the reverse." Nor did she undervalue the applause of the public. It was most welcome to her, and she labored with scrupulous fidelity to deserve it, taking infinite pains with little things as well as great, never for a moment inattentive or care- less. She learned from an officer in the army the best way to sheathe her sword, and for many other such details she sought out and consulted those who she thought would be able to instruct her. The praise she most enjoyed, however, was that of her friends ; and the most precious tribute to her powers was not that of the critics. She always looked back with peculiar pride to one evening at an entertainment in a fashionable house in New York, when she sang " Kathleen Mavourneen " to a large company. While she was singing a young Irish serving maid entered the room with a tray in her hand, and was so overcome with emotion, that for- getting her duties and her deportment alike, she sank down in a chair and burst into tears. At another time, at a hotel in the mountains, where Miss Phillips had refused to sing in public, having gone there in search of rest, she was found seated in the kitchen surrounded by guides and servants, all crying heartily at her pathetic singing of " Auld Robin Gray." The same magnetic power that characterized her sing- ing was exerted by her voice in speaking, when she chose to coax or command. Its influence was once acknowl- edged by a naughty little girl, who, having successfully resisted her parents and relatives, came and seated herself meekly at Miss Phillips' feet, saying :