rs not, common things, like any others, can be done
rightly.

By this observation we shall see hands performing all sorts of odd
tricks. The fingers are drumming, twitching, twirling, closing,
opening, doing a multitude of motions which mean what? Nothing, do you
say? Oh! no, indeed; not _nothing_ but _something_. Fingers and hands
which perform all these unnecessary motions are not being commanded by
the thoughts, and are acting as a result of _no_ thought; that is, of
thoughtlessness. Every one does it do you say? No, that is not true.
Many do these things, but those who command their thoughts never allow
it. If we never moved the hands except in a task when we commanded
them, we should soon become hand-skilled. The useless movements I have
spoken of _un_skill the hand. They are undoing motions, and teach us
that we must govern ourselves if we would become anything. Do you know
how it is that people do great things? They command themselves. Having
determined to do something, they work and work and work to finish it
at any cost. That gives strength and character.

Having observed the hands and their duties, we can readily see the
kind of task they must do in music. It is just the same kind of task
as laying a wall of stone. Every motion must be done honorably.
Everything must be thought out in the mind and heart before the hands
are called upon to act. Wise people always go about their tasks this
way. Unwise people try the other way, of acting first and thinking it
out afterward, and, of course, they always fail. You can now
understand that a great pianist is one who has great thought with
which to command the hands. And to be sure they will obey his commands
at once, he has made them obey him continuously for years. This
teaching the hands to obey is called Practice.

The Italian artist, Giotto, once said:

"You may judge my masterhood of craft by seeing that I can draw a
circle unerringly."

CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT THE ROMAN LADY SAID.

"You may always be successful if you do but set out well, and let
good thoughts and practice proceed upon right method."--_Marcus
Aurelius._[55]

The same wise Roman emperor who said this tells us a very pretty thing
about his mother, which shows us what a wise lady she must have been,
and how in the days of his manhood, with the cares of a great nation
upon him, he yet pondered upon the childhood teaching of home. First,
he speaks of his grandfather Verus, who, b