anguish, and the mistakes of both are resented as personal
affronts.

I know one girl (I wish I could stop at the singular number) who
cannot enjoy going to her own church because the choir does not come
up to her standard of perfection. She never sings in church herself.
To mingle her voice with the tide of thanksgiving and praise would be
like the crystal flash of the arrowy Rhone into the muddy Arve. She
sets her teeth while ignorant and unfeeling neighbors join in the
service of song, and confides on her way out of church to anybody who
will listen to her that she really thinks it a misfortune to have as
fine and true an ear as her own so long as people who do not know the
first principle of music _will_ persist in trying to sing. She has
many companions in the persuasion that this part of the worship of the
sanctuary should be left altogether to a trained and well-salaried
choir. In the family honored by her residence there is no home music
except of her making. There are, moreover, so many contingencies that
may deprive her expected audience of the rich privilege of hearkening
to the high emprise of her fingers and voice, that the chances are
oftentimes perilously in favor of her dying with all her music in her.

Shall I ever forget, or rally from, the compassionate patronage with
which she, a week agone, met my petition for

"When sparrows build and the leaves break forth?"

"I never sing ballad music," she said, loftily. "Indeed I could not do
myself justice in anything this evening. I make it a matter of
conscience not to attempt a note unless I am in perfect tune
throughout--mentally, spiritually and physically. I should consider
it an offence against the noblest of arts were I to sing just because
somebody wishes to hear me."

This is not entirely affectation. The tendency of her art-education
has been to make her disdainfully hypercritical. It has not awakened
the spirit of the true artist, who is quick to detect whatever
promises excellence and encourages the tyro to make the best of his
little talent.

With all our newly-born enthusiasm for German composers, we have not
taken lessons from the German people in this matter of home music. We
do not even ask ourselves what has made them a musical nation. At the
risk of writing myself down a hopeless old fogy, I venture the opinion
that we were more nearly upon this track when the much-ridiculed
singing-school was in full swing and every child was