“So,” said the Master, scornfully, “you are to be an artist and you are afraid of life! You are summoned to the ranks of the great and you shrink from the signal—cover your ears, that you shall not hear the trumpet call! This, when you should be on your knees, thanking the good God that at last He has taught you pain!”
Lynn’s face was pitiful, and yet he listened eagerly.
“There is no half-way point,” the Master was saying; “if you take it, you must pay. Nothing in this world is free but the sun and the fresh air. You must buy shelter, food, clothing, with the work of your hands and brain. If someone else gives it to you, it is not yours—you are one parasite. You must earn it all.
“You think you can take all, and give nothing? It is not so. For six, eight years now, you study the violin. You learn the scales, the technique, the good wrist, and nothing else. I teach you all I can, but it must come from yourself, not me. I can only guide—tell you when you have made one mistake.
“What is it that the art is for? Is it for one great assembly of people to pay the high price for admission? ‘See,’ they say, ‘this young man, what good tone he has, what bowing, what fine wrist! How smooth he plays his concerto! When it is marked fortissimo, see how he plays fortissimo! It is most skilful!’ Is the art for that? No!
“It is for everyone in the world who has known trouble to be lifted up and made strong. They care nothing for the means, only for the end. They have no eyes for the fine bowing, the good wrist—what shall they know of technique? And yet you must have the technique, else you cannot give the message.
“Everyone that hears has had his own sorrow. None of them are new ones, they are all old, and so few that one person can suffer all. It is for you to take that, to know the hurt heart and the rebellious soul, so that you can comfort, lift up, and make noble with your art.
“And you—you cry out when you should be glad. Miss Iris does not love you, and beyond that you do not see. Suppose one thousand people were before you, and all had loved someone who did not care for them. Could you make it easier if you knew nothing of it by yourself?
“Listen. On a hill in Italy there was once a tree. It was a seed at the beginning, a seed you could hold with the ends of your fingers, so. It was buried in the ground, covered up with earth like something that had died. Do you think the seed liked that?
“But is it afraid, when its heart is swelling? No! It breaks through, with the great hurt. Still there is earth around it, still it is buried, but yet it aspires. One day it comes to the surface of the ground, and once more it breaks through, with pain.