‘Herr Falkenberg, don’t—please don’t say that!’ she implored, in a voice that was pitiable, though so low.
‘But I must, if you allow it thus to enervate you—to emasculate your power. Pardon my frankness, and what may seem my intrusiveness; but you know my motives. Do you mean to give up your art?’
‘No—oh no! I never thought of such a thing.’
‘Then look to what you are doing. Such things as those you have showed me—such thin, weak, boneless, bloodless things are a mere prostitution of one of the noblest and most glorious of arts. For heaven’s sake, if you do not intend to do better than that, give it up altogether. Surely you are above such amateur dabbling, such sentimental prettinesses—you, who might do well and worthily, even nobly, I believe, if you only would. And, if you intend to persevere, let me tell you that the “happiness,” or the “good fortune,” or whatsoever it may be, which degrades your powers instead of expanding them, is bad. Sorrow rightly borne, and noble joy rightly worn, should elevate, not degrade. There is no evading this law, and no escaping it for those who have souls at all; and I was firmly convinced that you had. What has one of your own countrymen said, one of the most consummate art-critics that ever lived? He has said just the same thing—“accurately, in proportion to the rightness of the cause, and the purity of the emotion, is the possibility of the fine art— ... with absolute precision, from the highest to the lowest, the fineness of the possible art is an index of the moral purity and majesty of the emotion it expresses.” That is one of the hardest things ever written, and one of the truest. Measure yourself by it, with those—and where are you?’
Sara had cast herself into a chair, and with her hands before her face, was controlling her sobs as best she might. Never before had she felt thus humbled and scorched, and burnt up, as it were. It was terrible, yet not one pang of anger or resentment mingled with her emotion. She knew that what he said was just—no more, no less; and being noble, she liked him the better for his having said it. There was no carping, no prejudice or temper in what he said—no scolding for the sake of rousing her to retort or to deprecate; there was the sorrowful, stern condemnation of one who knew she had belied herself, and had sufficient regard for her to tell her so, and she bowed to it.
He did not speak for a little time, and gradually her sobs grew quieter. At last he stopped before her, and said:
‘Miss Ford!’
Sara removed her hands from before her face, picked up her handkerchief, dried her eyes with it, and looked at him. His eyes were full of kindness; they were not hard; his face was not the face of a hard judge, and his voice was soothing as he said:
‘I do not beg you to forgive me for what I have said to you. If you are what I take you to be, that is not necessary. I do not say I am sorry to have wounded you. I honour you so much as to feel sure that you appreciate my reasons for so speaking. But I ask you, do you know yourself the reason of this quick and lamentable falling off?’
‘Yes, I know it,’ she replied, looking at him with a face pale indeed, but with eyes which did not waver. ‘The reason is, that I have dreamed of myself and my own happiness to the exclusion of everything else. I have let my love master me, instead of being myself master of my love. And I am punished for it.’