Thou wast in very deed a bread-and-butter miss in those days, Euterpe, for all that thy eight twin sisters were already grown up, and out; and now thou toppest them all by half a head, at least. "Tu leur mangerais des petits pâtés sur la tête—comme Madame Seraskier!"
And oh, how thou beatest them all for beauty! In my estimation, at least—like—like Madame Seraskier again!
And hast thou done growing at last?
Nay, indeed; thou art not even yet a bread-and-butter miss—thou art but a sweet baby, one year old, and seven feet high, tottering midway between some blessed heaven thou hast only just left and the dull home of us poor mortals.
The sweet one-year-old baby of our kin puts its hands upon our knees and looks up into our eyes with eyes full of unutterable meaning. It has so much to say! It can only say "ga-ga" and "ba-ba"; but with oh! how searching a voice, how touching a look—that is, if one is fond of babies! We are moved to the very core; we want to understand, for it concerns us all; we were once like that ourselves—the individual and the race—but for the life of us we cannot remember.
And what canst thou say to us yet, Euterpe, but thy "ga-ga" and thy "ba-ba," the inarticulate sweetness whereof we feel and cannot comprehend? But how beautiful it is—and what a look thou hast, and what a voice—that is, if one is fond of music!
"Je suis las des mois—je suis d'entendre
Ce qui peut mentir;
J'aime mieux les sons, qu'au lieu de comprendre
je n'ai qu'à sentir."
Next day I would buy or beg or borrow the music that had filled me with such emotion and delight, and take it home to my little square piano, and try to finger it all out for myself. But I had begun too late in life.
To sit, longing and helpless, before an instrument one cannot play, with a lovely score one cannot read! Even Tantalus was spared such an ordeal as that.
It seemed hard that my dear father and mother, so accomplished in music themselves, should not even have taught me the musical notes, at an age when it was so easy to learn them; and thus have made me free of that wonder-world of sound in which I took such an extraordinary delight, and might have achieved distinction—perhaps.