Page:Women of distinction.djvu/128

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.

The London Observer also said of her:

Her voice was at once declared to be one of extraordinary compass. Both her high and low notes were heard with wonder by the assembled amateurs and her ears were pronounced to be excellent.

CHAPTER XVII.

MISS NELLIE E. BROWN.

After all it would seem that rare musical talent is like the rare and gifted poet—"born and not made." Certainly there is in the musical being, as there is in the poetical being, something that is rather more natural than it is artificial, however much training and pruning it may require to develop it.

The subject of these lines evidently possessed natural ability, peculiar and rare, before she received the strong support and help of that special training that has added so much to the complete development and roundness of her most remarkable gift.

Miss Nellie E. Brown, of Dover, N. H., early began the onward march to eminence with such zeal and earnestness that she was soon the pride of all men who knew her enough to appreciate her ability and worth.

In speaking of her Mr. James M. Trotter uses the following:

A few years ago, while attending a private school in Dover, Miss Caroline Bracket, a teacher in the same, noticing that Miss Brown possessed a naturally superior voice, earnestly advised its fullest culti-