rcises, even in your interesting manner?" My
dear ladies, children ought to do it merely from habit, although in many
cases, after the beginning, talent and correct musical instinct may make
their appearance. Uninterrupted enjoyment would indeed be unnatural, and
where you find it vanity will usually be its moving spring, and this
seldom bears good fruit. You may as well ask whether our great literary
men and artists always like to go to school, or whether they did not
delight in a holiday. Let this be the answer to the strange question, Do
your daughters like to play? Good heavens! After they are able to play,
and that without much effort, and a little at sight; when they can
master, with a musical appreciation, easy, graceful salon music, or even
the easier compositions of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Hummel,
Moscheles, &c.,--then they take pleasure in playing, and they play a
great deal, and with enthusiasm.

2. But, in case children should sometimes begin in their sixth year, you
must remember what is said, in the first chapter of this work, with
regard to the prevalent false method of teaching beginners. You,
however, are supposed to have had better and more sensible teachers. Let
me nevertheless quote for your amusement the remark which I have heard
so frequently in the course of my long life as a piano-teacher: "In the
beginning, a poor, rattling piano, that is forty years old, and that is
tuned regularly once a year, and a cheap teacher, will do well enough.
As soon as the children learn to play really well, then we will have a
better piano and a better teacher." Yes; but that time never comes, and
the parents soon conclude that even the most gifted children have no
talent, and take no pleasure in music; and so they stop learning, only
to regret it when they are older. But the parents console themselves,
and after a while the old piano is never tuned at all. But, as I have
told you, I do not refer here to _your_ teachers, for whom I have a
personal regard, and who teach on excellent pianos.

3. Don't be angry with me for my suggestion, ladies: _you do not make
enough use of the minutes_. While our learned education absorbs so much
time, while our friends require so many hours, while, alas! balls and
dinners consume whole days, we must be sparing of the remaining minutes.

"Now I must rush to the piano! I must go to dinner in ten minutes: two
scales, two finger exercises, two difficult passages out of the pie