Martin’s face had grown quite serious; the brightness in it seemed to have ceased to be on the surface only; it glowed beneath like the core of a prospering fire.
“Tell me what to do, then,” he said.
“Work, and live also. Do not forget that any experience in life, so long only as it is not sensual,—for whatever is sensual blurs and deadens the fineness of any gift,—gives richness and breath to your power in music. Live, then; live to your utmost and your best. Do not be afraid of anything. Neither the bitterest sorrow that the world holds nor its most poignant joy can bring you anything but good, so long as you embrace it willingly, passionately. But shun a sorrow or a joy, and you are clipped, maimed, blinded.”
The old man spoke with extraordinary fire and emphasis, and the intense eager gravity of Martin’s face deepened. Here was a coherent code which summed up, strung together, his own musings by the river-brink.
“Am I then to—am I to take all that comes,” he asked, “and trust that it will somehow make grist for my own little mill?”
“Ah, you understand,” said Karl. “I see you have thought of it before. But never call your mill little. If it is little, you may be sure that others will label it for you. And if it is not little—then down on your knees and thank God. Ah, my dear boy, you are all that you are. Make the most of you. Assume there is something.”
He paused a moment.
“And I will endorse it,” he said.
Again Martin looked at him with that lucid glance as transparent as running water.
“Yes, I will endorse it,” he repeated. “And if any one dishonours your cheque, I will pay it.”