Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

142 MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
present time, Mr. Clarke, who was utterly unworldly
and unconventional, burst forth with all the fervour
and all the heart of one who feels that vital interests
are at stake :
' My Anna there has not a tenth part
of your natural gifts—for I have been listening more
than you can surmise to your practice since you came
here. Ah ! how conscientiously you go to work, and
how you ton at the keyboard ; and yet, alas ! it will
result in nothing but pain and dissatisfaction with
yourself !'
' I must wish you " good-night," ' I said ;
' there is
not the slightest use in your speaking thus to me.'
And so saying, I turned to go; but this strange,
simple, unconventional, and really noble being held
my hand, and detained me quite against my will.
' No, no,' he said, ' you shall not evade me ; if you
never hear the whole truth in your life again, you
shall hear it now, and hear it to the end; and you
may be as angry just at this moment as you like at
the freedom which I take, yet I know when we are in
different parts of the world, perhaps never to see one
another's face again, you will forgive me—you will say
it was a true, deep, and tender interest in your welfare
that made me thus insist on detaining you against
your will. I repeat once more, and repeat it in the
presence of my wife—in natural gifts you stand far,
far above her ; but this makes it all the sadder, that
in art she—ah ! she is up there,' and, suiting the
action to the word, he raised his hand as if he were