re forced into
prompt action we cannot succeed; for while all thoughts seek action,
wish-thoughts demand the most labor.

It would be pleasant to have a Talk about every one of the great
masters to see in what particular way each of them sacrificed for the
art he loved. In all of them the true qualities come out: in one as
earnestness; in another as determination; in another as patriotism;
but all are loyal to the art itself. It must be a very plain lesson to
us to see that when men are willing to give all their thoughts to a
subject they get much from it. And is it not quite as plain to see
that no one can get much if he gives but a few unwilling minutes to
it? I trust none who hear these Talks will ever think that with a
little time given to their music, and that not freely given, they can
ever get either pleasure or comfort from it. They never can. And
rather than do it so they would better leave it undone. If we set out
on the way to go to the masters we shall get there only by
earnestness. Lagging is a disgrace to the one who travels and to the
one to whom we go. It shows his laziness on the one hand, and his
misunderstanding of the master on the other; for if he understood he
would take no listless step.

Now we have said again and again that true music comes from the heart,
and is simple. At the same time we find it difficult to understand the
music of the masters. That is, some of us find it so. It seems
anything but simple to us; and naturally we conclude that there is
something wrong somewhere. We sit at our tasks, poring over the music,
and we grow discouraged because we cannot play it. To think it a very
hard task is natural, and we cannot bear to hear such tones. Well, let
us not get discouraged for that; let us see!

First of all, the playing is more difficult to do than the music is to
understand. Once a great master of the piano played to a lady who had
never heard a great master before, and the playing was like beautiful
lace. When it was over and the master had gone away, some one asked
the lady how he had played, and she said:

"He played so that the music sounded as I thought it should."

And they asked her what she meant.

"Always I have been taught," she said, "to listen to music and to
think it. I have been taught this more than I have been taught to
play. And the music of the master-composers I always think of as
beautiful and simple but hard to make it sound as it should. Often I
have he