isch is a lazy
polka. A polka is the worst thing in the world: the next worst is a
schottisch. A schottisch is so lazy, so slow, that a fire would hardly
kindle with it."

"In preparing to play a piece in public should one practise it up to the
last moment?"--"Try it and see: you will soon decide in the negative.
Lay it aside some time before if you would avoid nervousness."

"What would you give as a first piano-lesson to a young lady who had
never taken a lesson before?"--"Make her get the piano-stool at exactly
the right height and place: then ensure a good position of her hands
and easy motion of the fingers. Let her practise this for three days."

"How far advanced ought a person to be in music to begin to
teach?"--"Teaching involves three things: first, a knowledge of
something on the part of the teacher; second, a corresponding ignorance
on the part of the learner; third, the ability to impart this knowledge.
These conditions fulfilled might sometimes allow a person to begin to
teach with advantage at a very early age and with a very moderate range
of acquirements, though, as every instructor knows, his earlier methods
were very different from his later ones. The difficulty with young
teachers in general is that they try to teach too much at once, like the
young minister who preached all he knew in his first sermon. Never
introduce more than two principles in any one lesson, and as a rule but
one."

"Is a mazourka as bad as a polka?"--"No. I think it is not morally so
bad as a polka: it has somewhat the grace of the waltz."

"Who is the best music-teacher in Boston?"--"As there are twenty-five
hundred persons teaching music in and about this city, and seventy-five
regular teachers at this Conservatory alone, both ignorance and delicacy
on my part should forbid a definite reply. It were well to remember
Paris, the apple of discord and the Trojan war."

"Is Mr. A---- (a young professor at the Conservatory, voted attractive
by the feminine pupils in general) married?"--"This being Leap Year, a
personal investigation of the subject might be more satisfactory and
effectual than a public decision of this point."

At the expiration of her first term Cecilia realizes that her condition
is one of constant growth: quickening influences are in the air. She
came to Boston to learn music: she is also learning life. She perceives,
moreover, that in her musical progress the aesthetic part of her nature
has not been perm