in my sadness till you forget your own. Oh,
the sorrow of my sweet pipings! Whatever becomes of your eyes, keep
your two ears for _my_ sake; and for your sake too! You don't know
what exquisite ears you've got. You are like me--you and I are made
of silk, Barty--as other men are made of sackcloth; and their love,
of ashes; and their joys, of dust!

"Even the good priest who plays me to you so glibly doesn't
understand what I am talking about half so well as _you_ do, who
can't read a word I write! He had to learn my language note by note
from the best music-master in Brussels. It's your mother-tongue! You
learned it as you sucked at your sweet young mother's breast, my
poor love-child! And all through her, your ears, like your remaining
eye, are worth a hatful of the common kind--and some day it will be
the same with your heart and brain...."

"Yes"--continues Schumann--"but you'll have to suffer first--like
me, who will have to kill myself very soon; because I am going
mad--and that's worse than any blindness! and like Beethoven who
went deaf, poor demigod! and like all the rest of us who've been
singing to you to-night; that's why our songs never pall--because we
are acquainted with grief, and have good memories, and are quite
sincere. The older you get, the more you will love us and our songs:
other songs may come and go in the ear; but ours go ringing in the
heart forever!"

In some such fashion did the great masters of tune and tone
Discourse to Barty through Father Louis's well-trained finger-tips.
They always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great
masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self-love!
The finger-tips (whosesoever's finger-tips they be) have only to be
intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them
in a true, reverent spirit. Anything beyond may be unpardonable
impertinence, both to the great masters and yourself.

Musicians will tell you that all this is nonsense from beginning to
end; you mustn't believe musicians about music, nor wine-merchants
about wine--but vice versa!

When Father Louis got up from the music-stool, the Abbe would say to
Barty, in his delightful, pure French:

"And now, mon ami--just for _me_, you know--a little song of
autrefois."

"All right, M. l'Abbe--I will sing you the 'Adelaide,' of
Beethoven ... if Father Louis will play for me."

"Oh, non, mon ami, do not throw away such a beautiful organ as yours
on such