Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

Sm STERNDALE BENNETT
' Well, it is a problem ; it will work itself out some
day.' And then, turning to me, he would observe that
in a concert-room there are perhaps not more than
five or six among the listeners who are really giving
themselves up to take in what the player is offering to
them. 'You are choosing,' he used to say, 'a path
which is beset with thorns.' The natural result of all
this was, that without actually saying that I would
give up the idea of playing in public, I did what
amounted to quite the same thing. My mother's
wishes and Sterndale Bennett's sombre view of public
life damped my ardour for such a career. I paused,
without realizing that not to advance is to retreat
and indulging the hope that circumstances might come
in to help me, I consented to stay quietly at home,
and content myself with occasional visits to London
for the purpose of showing Sir Sterndale Bennett how
I continued to work. The next step may be foreseen
for if art was to be only my pleasure, and not my
life's vocation, what right had I just for this pleasure
to turn all family arrangements upside down ?
I found myself, moreover, looked on in our circle
as a star, a wonder, a sort of oracle ; and though I
knew well that there was no honour in being admired
by people who had no art-perceptions, yet I let myself
drift into a sort of stagnation, and slowly, but none
the less surely, did I cease 'to be on the strain.'
Waves of circumstance, beginning with a disappointment
in friendship, in which music and musical
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