DOMINIE. Have given themselves a great deal of trouble? What do you mean
by that? If they do not take pains in the right way, or at the right
time and place, it is all labor in vain. Of what use is mere unskilful,
stupid industry? For instance, when a teacher, in order to correct a
stiff use of the fingers and wrist, and the general faulty touch of his
pupil, gives some wonderful etude or a piece with great stretches and
arpeggios for the left hand, and gives himself unwearied trouble over
it, it is a proof of abundant painstaking; but it is labor thrown away,
and only makes the imperfect mode of performance the worse.
And now with regard to my daughters. It has been their fortune to have
had me for a father and teacher: they certainly have talent, and I have
been successful in rousing and guiding it. Envy, jealousy, pride, and
offended egotism have tried as long as possible to dispute this; but at
last the effort is abandoned. They say that it requires no art to
educate such talent as theirs, that it almost "comes of itself.
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