Those visionary strains, ever struggling to translate into wild and broken sounds the language of unearthly beings, breathed around her from her birth.

Thus you might have said that her whole mind was full of music; associations, memories, sensations of pleasure or pain,--all were mixed up inexplicably with those sounds that now delighted and now terrified; that greeted her when her eyes opened to the sun, and woke her trembling on her lonely couch in the darkness of the night.

The legends and tales of Gionetta only served to make the child better understand the signification of those mysterious tones; they furnished her with words to the music.

It was natural that the daughter of such a parent should soon evince some taste in his art.

But this developed itself chiefly in the ear and the voice.
She was yet a child when she sang divinely.