burning eyelids. Every word that
Klesmer had said seemed to have been branded into her memory, as most words are
which bring with them a new set of impressions and make an epoch for us. Only a
few hours before, the dawning smile of self-contentment rested on her lips as
she vaguely imagined a future suited to her wishes: it seemed but the affair of
a year or so for her to become the most approved Juliet of the time; or, if
Klesmer encouraged her idea of being a singer, to proceed by more gradual steps
to her place in the opera, while she won money and applause by occasional
performances. Why not? At home, at school, among acquaintances, she had been
used to have her conscious superiority admitted; and she had moved in a society
where everything, from low arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind
politely supposed to fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies
are not obliged to do more than they like - otherwise they would probably give
forth abler writings and show themselves more commanding artists than any the
world is at present obliged to put up with. The self-confident visions that had
beguiled her were not of a highly exceptional kind; and she had at least shown
some nationality in consulting the person who knew the most and had flattered
her the least. In asking Klesmer's advice, however, she had rather been borne up
by a belief in his latent admiration than bent on knowing anything more
unfavourable that might have lain behind his slight objections to her singing;
and the truth she had asked for with an expectation that it would be agreeable,
had come like a lacerating thong.
    »Too old - should have begun seven years ago - you will not, at best,
achieve more than mediocrity - hard, incessant work, uncertain praise - bread
coming slowly, scantily, perhaps not at all - mortifications, people no longer
feigning not to see your blunders - glaring insignificance« - all these phrases
rankled in her; and even more galling was the hint that she could only be
accepted on the stage as a beauty who hoped to get a husband. The »indignities«
that she might be visited with had no very definite form for her, but the mere
association of anything called »indignity« with herself, roused a resentful
alarm. And along with the vaguer images which were raised by those biting words,
came the more precise conception of disagreeables which her experience enabled
her to imagine. How could she take her mamma and the four sisters to London, if
it were not possible for her to earn money