and kindness came close to her and said -
    »Imagine what I have to go through with this professor! He can hardly
tolerate anything we English do in music. We can only put up with his severity,
and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of us. It is a little
comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every one else is admiring.«
    »I should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst,« said
Gwendolen, recovering herself. »I daresay I have been extremely ill taught, in
addition to having no talent - only liking for music.« This was very well
expressed considering that it had never entered her mind before.
    »Yes, it is true; you have not been well taught,« said Herr Klesmer,
quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. »Still, you are not quite
without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair organ. But you
produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing is beneath you. It is a
form of melody which expresses a puerile state of culture - a dandling, canting,
seesaw kind of stuff - the passion and thought of people without any breadth of
horizon. There is a sort of self-satisfied folly about every phrase of such
melody; no cries of deep, mysterious passion - no conflict - no sense of the
universal. It makes men small as they listen to it. Sing now something larger.
And I shall see.«
    »Oh, not now - by-and-by,« said Gwendolen, with a sinking of heart at the
sudden width of horizon opened round her small musical performance. For a young
lady desiring to lead, this first encounter in her campaign was startling. But
she was bent on not behaving foolishly, and Miss Arrowpoint helped her by saying
-
    »Yes, by-and-by. I always require half an hour to get up my courage after
being criticised by Herr Klesmer. We will ask him to play to us now: he is bound
to show us what is good music.«
    To be quite safe on this point Herr Klesmer played a composition of his own,
a fantasia called Freudvoll, Leidvoll, Gedankenvoll - an extensive commentary on
some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and he certainly fetched as much
variety and depth of passion out of the piano as that moderately responsive
instrument lends itself to, having an imperious magic in his fingers that seemed
to send a nerve-thrill through ivory key and wooden