we learn in the moment
we ask that question that these painful tasks are the price we are
paying for the development of our talent. That is truly the purpose of
a lesson. And the dear teacher, wise because she has been painfully
over the road herself, knows how good and necessary it is for us to
labor as she directs.

Let us suppose you play the piano. There will be two kinds of
lessons--one will be for the fingers, one for the mind. But really the
mind also guides the finger-work; and the heart must be in all. Your
exercises will give you greater power to speak with the fingers. Every
new finger-exercise in piano-playing is like a new word in language.
Provided with it, you can say more than you could before. The work for
the mind is the classics. These are compositions by the greater and
lesser masters with which you form the taste, while the technical
exercises are provided to give you the power, the ability, to play
them. Thus you see how well these two things go together.

Year after year, if you go on patiently, you will add to each of these
tasks; more power will come to the fingers and to the mind. All this
time you will be coming nearer and nearer to the true music. More and
more will be coming out of your heart. The spring will not only
continue to bubble clearly but it will become more powerful. Nothing
is so wonderful as that.

Do you know what a sad thing it was for the man not to increase that
one talent which had been given to him? [39] Perchance you have also
one. Then find it, love it, increase it. Know that every step of the
way, every bit of task, every moment of faith is paid for in later
years ten thousandfold.

If now we remember our Talk on Listening it will serve us. Did we not
say then that the first duty of a listener is to the one who speaks
for his good? Lesson time is an opportunity above nearly all others
when we should listen with love in our attention. Yes, nothing less
than that, because--how many times we have heard it already--putting
love into anything, is putting the heart into it, and with less than
that we do not get all we may have.

This Talk, then, is important, because it gathers together many things
that have gone before, and hints at some to come. Let us give the last
words to speaking about that. A lesson suggests listening; listening
suggests the teacher, who with infinite kindness and severity guides
us; and the teacher suggests the beautiful road along which we go a