As to his [Plunket Greene] singing, 1 loved it there and then. I love it still. I should love it if he hadn’t a note left in his voice ! but at the time I am speaking of, his voice was lovely. It always touched me inexpressibly. His is the only voice that ever really reminded me of Santley’s; it had the same ring of enthusiasm in it that appealed to me so strongly in the older man. Years ago, at one of his recitals at St. James’s Hall, he sang an old German sacred lullaby in which these words occur -

“O Jesu liebstes Kindelein

Du kleines Kindelein

Wie gross ist doch die Liebe dein

Schleuss in das Herze mein

Die grosse Liebe dein.”

I shall never forget the tenderness with which he sang those lines, the enthusiastic, the beautiful quality of that tenderness. He made you admire what he admired ! He made you love what he loved ! And that day he evoked a vision of the little sacred Child as lovely and as touching as any that has been handed down to us by the great painters of old.

The day I heard him sing that beautiful old song I had to make a decision, a decision that it cost me a good deal to arrive at. And what helped me to make up my mind to do what I thought bravest and best was the sheer beauty of the Divine Love suggested by his singing, the enthusiastic admiration with which he sang those lines -

“O Jesu liebstes Kindelein

Du kleines Kindelein

Wie gross ist doch die Liebe dein

Schleuss in das Herze mein

Die grosse Liebe dein.”

And as he sang, what seemed an intolerable sacrifice suddenly appeared to me in the light of a great, a unique opportunity of trying for once, at all events, to throw open the doors of my heart in order to allow that Love to enter and take complete possession of it.

Ah, it’s a great thing to be the artist who can make a fellow-creature feel like that !