But no, my father had dedicated me to the Goddess of Science from before my very birth; that I might some day be better equipped than he for the pursuit, capture, and utilization of Nature's sterner secrets. There must be no dallying with light Muses. Alas! I have fallen between two stools!
And thus, Euterpe absent, her enchantment would pass away; her handwriting was before me, but I had not learned how to decipher it, and my weary self would creep back into its old prison—my soul.
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Self-sickness-selbstschmerz, le mal do soi! What a disease! It is not to be found in any dictionary, medical or otherwise.
I ought to have been whipped for it, I know; but nobody was big enough, or kind enough, to whip me!
* * * * *
At length there came a day when that weary, weak, and most ridiculous self of mine was driven out—and exorcised for good—by a still more potent enchanter than even Handel or Beethoven or Schubert!
There was a certain Lord Cray, for whom Lintot had built some laborers' cottages in Hertfordshire, and I sometimes went there to superintend the workmen. When the cottages were finished, Lord Cray and his wife (a very charming, middle-aged lady) came to see them, and were much pleased with all that had been done, and also seemed to be much interested in me, of all people in the world! and a few days later I received a card of invitation to their house in town for a concert.
At first I felt much too shy to go; but Mr. Lintot insisted that it was my duty to do so, as it might lead to business; so that when the night came, I screwed up my courage to the sticking-place, and went.
That evening was all enchantment, or would have been but for the somewhat painful feeling that I was such an outsider.