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With him it had been Adele’s first song, the florid aria to show off her voice, which had made the passing impression, not the second; in fact, the train of thought first excited had continued on through Adele’s second song, blinding him to a certain extent,—so that although he did hear the beautiful finale when her voice passed from hearing, he was preoccupied; he heard it only as another instance of her highly cultivated technique, nothing more. Its real spiritual significance had been lost upon him because his mind was preoccupied in another direction. Having ears he had not heard, yet being what he was, he had; consequently his impressions of her performance were complicated. He had appreciated her cultivated voice as fully, probably, as any in the room, but also remembered how at the hospital some time before she had sung much less ambitious music which excited even greater sympathy, bringing tears rather than applause. He did not wish Adele to lose her charm in that respect, and now, in his present frame of mind, feared lest she might do so. In fact, being somewhat askew in his own mind, yet rather sensitive about her, he jumped to the conclusion that she might give up the old simplicity of real power in order to electrify society by flights of vocalization. Thus the spirituality of a sincere, practical man did not differ fundamentally from that of another with greater æsthetic and artistic development, but the manifestation of it took an entirely different form.