Elizabeth Sara Sheppard

“ I thought, sir, somehow that you did not teach."
"Understand me, then, that what I say I say to satisfy you: you are better as you are, better than you could be with me. I am a wanderer, and it is not my right to teach; I am bound to another craft, and the only one for the perfecting of which it is not my right to call myself poor. Do you understand, Charles?"
"I think, sir, that you mean you make music, and that therefore you have no time for the dirty work."
He broke into a burst of laughter, like joy-bells. "There is as much dirty work, however, in what you call making music. ”

“ I waited until the bier, bare of its gentle burden, stood lonely by the grave. I waited until the wreaths, flung in, covered the treasure with their kisses that was a jewel for earth to hide. I saw the torches thrown into the abyss, quenched by the kisses of the flowers, even as the earthly joy, the beauty, had been quenched in that abyss of light which to us is only darkness. I watched the black shadows draw closer round the grave; one suffocating cry arose, as if all hearts were broken in that spasm, or as if Music herself had given up the ghost. But Music never dies. ”

“ You have been accustomed to practise nine hours a day without an instrument, and nothing is so self-supporting as such necessity."
"Yes, sir, it is very good, but not so charming as to sing with your sweet piano."
"Do you really practise nine hours a day, Miss Benette?"
"Yes, Master Auchester, always; and I find it not enough."
"But do you practise without a piano?"
"Yes, it is best for me; but when I come to my lessons and hear the delightful keys, I feel as if music had come out of heaven to talk with me." ”

“ Maria's voice was trembling in my brain, a ghostly music. As Laura answered, the ghostly music passed, even as a wind shaken and scattered upon the sea. It was earth again, as vague, scarcely less lonely!
"A worldly man would mock. You do not a much wiser thing, but you do it for the best. I will try to hide it forever, for there is, indeed, no hope."
Half imploring, this was hardly a question; yet I answered,—
"I do believe none."
"You are cold, not cruel. I would rather know the truth. Yes! ”

“ We arose, and again walked on.
"Sir, I would rather have the basket than the strawberries."
"I wish a little child may be of your mind. Were you happy, Charles, when you were a little child?"
"Sir, I was always longing to be a man. I never considered what it was to be a little child."
"Thou art a boy, and that is to be a man-child,—the beautiful fate! But it is thy beautiful fate to teach others also, as only children teach."
"I, sir,—how?"
"Charles, a man may be always longing to be an angel, and never consider what it is to be a man." ”

“ I said, sitting down at the foot of a cross that was hung with faded garlands, "why don't you sit in the shade? It is a very warm day."
"So it is very warm, and that is what I like; I am never warm enough here, and Florimond, too, loves the sun. I could not sit under a tree this day, everything is so bright; but nothing can be as bright as I wish it. Carl, I was going to tell Florimond, and I will tell you, that I feel as if I were too glad to bear what is before me. I did not think so until it came so very near. I am afraid when I stand up my heart will fail."
"Are you frightened, Maria?" ”

“ But I do not wish to belong to him, nor to any one,—only to music now; and besides, 131 I should not have had his love. He wished to marry me that he might take care of me. But when he said so, I answered, 'Sir, I can take care of myself.'"
"But, Miss Benette, how much should one love, and how, then, if one is to marry? For I do not think all people marry for love!"
"You are not old enough to understand, and I am not old enough to tell you," she said sweetly, with her eyes upon her work as usual, "nor do I wish to know. If some people marry not for love, what is that to me? ”

“ It was Miss Lawrence who carried to Laura the news of Seraphael's death,—herself heart-broken, who bound up that bleeding heart. It is Miss Lawrence whose secretive and peculiar generosity so permeates the heart of music in London that no true musician is actually ever poor. It is Miss Lawrence who, disdaining subscription-lists, steps unseen through every embarrassment where those languish who are too proud or too humble to complain, and leaves that behind her which re-assures and re-establishes by the magic of charity strewn from her artist-hand. ”

“ Santonio's cantabile, whatever they say of Ernst or of Sivori, is superior to either. There is a manly passion in his playing that never condescends to coquette with the submissive strings; it wailed enough that night for anything, and yet never degenerated into imitation. I knew directly I heard him draw the first quickening, shivering chord—shivering to my heart—I knew that the violin must become my master, or I its own.
Davy, still pale, but radiant with sympathetic pleasure, continued to glance down upon me, and Clara's eyes were lost in drooping to the ground. ”

“ Entering, still hushed and awful, the centre of the nave, we caught sight of the transept already crowded with hungering, thirsting faces; still they too, and all there hushed and awful. The vision of the choir itself, as it is still preserved to me, is as a picture of heaven to infancy. What more like one's idea of heaven than that height, that aspiring form,—the arches whose sun-kissed summits glowed in distance, whose vista stretched its boundaries from the light of rainbows at one end, on the other to the organ, music's archetype? ”

“ How mysterious that no one should talk about her as a very great wonder! She is almost as great a wonder as Miss Benette. I should like to know whether Mr. Davy has seen her dance."
But though I called it dancing, as I supposed I must, it was totally unlike all that I had considered dancing to be. She seemed now suspended in the air, her feet flew out with the spangles like a shower of silver sparks, her arms were flung above her, and the silver bells, as she floated by me without even brushing my coat, clinked with a thrilling monotone against Clara's voice. ”