ot at all ladies and quite
ugly. I suppose I have no particular talent, but I _must_ think it is
an advantage, even on the stage, to be a lady and not a perfect fright."

"Ah, let us understand each other," said Klesmer, with a flash of new
meaning. "I was speaking of what you would have to go through if you
aimed at becoming a real artist--if you took music and the drama as a
higher vocation in which you would strive after excellence. On that
head, what I have said stands fast. You would find--after your
education in doing things slackly for one-and-twenty years--great
difficulties in study; you would find mortifications in the treatment
you would get when you presented yourself on the footing of skill. You
would be subjected to tests; people would no longer feign not to see
your blunders. You would at first only be accepted on trial. You would
have to bear what I may call a glaring insignificance: any success must
be won by the utmost patience. You would have to keep your place in a
crowd, and after all it is likely you would lose it and get out of
sight. If you determine to face these hardships and still try, you will
have the dignity of a high purpose, even though you may have chosen
unfortunately. You will have some merit, though you may win no prize.
You have asked my judgment on your chances of winning. I don't pretend
to speak absolutely; but measuring probabilities, my judgment is:--you
will hardly achieve more than mediocrity."

Klesmer had delivered himself with emphatic rapidity, and now paused a
moment. Gwendolen was motionless, looking at her hands, which lay over
each other on her lap, till the deep-toned, long-drawn "_But_," with
which he resumed, had a startling effect, and made her look at him
again.

"But--there are certainly other ideas, other dispositions with which a
young lady may take up an art that will bring her before the public.
She may rely on the unquestioned power of her beauty as a passport. She
may desire to exhibit herself to an admiration which dispenses with
skill. This goes a certain way on the stage: not in music: but on the
stage, beauty is taken when there is nothing more commanding to be had.
Not without some drilling, however: as I have said before,
technicalities have in any case to be mastered. But these excepted, we
have here nothing to do with art. The woman who takes up this career is
not an artist: she is usually one who thinks of entering on a luxurious
life by a short