But the long tension had been too muchhe fell back unconscious.

It was not great music, surely; but it was sung by the greatest living singer, singing alone in the dark, as calmly and as perfectly as if all the orchestra had been with her, singing as no one can who feels the least tremor of fear; and the awful tension of the dark throng relaxed, and the breath that came was a great sigh of relief, for it was not possible to be frightened when a fearless woman was singing so marvellously.

Besides the effect of the hard and bony parts of the ear in increasing the power of sound, the tension of the different membranes is also a requisite: thus various muscles are so situated as to put the membrane on the stretch, that the sound, striking upon it, may, from its tension, similar to that of the parchment of a drum-head, have full influence upon the sense.