Was consciousness of glory wide-diffused,
Music, life, power--I moving in the midst
With a sublime necessity of good.

Her ambition runs very high.

May the day be near when men
Think much to let my horses draw me home,
And new lands welcome me upon their beach,
Loving me for my fame. That is the truth
Of what I wish, nay, yearn for. Shall I lie?
Pretend to seek obscurity--to sing
In hope of disregard? A vile pretence!
And blasphemy besides. For what is fame
But the benignant strength of One, transformed
To joy of Many? Tributes, plaudits come
As necessary breathing of such joy;
And may they come to me!

Armgart is beloved of the Graf, and he tries to persuade her to abandon her
artistic career and become his wife. He says to her,--

A woman's rank
Lies in the fulness of her womanhood:
Therein alone she is loyal.

Again he says to her,--

Pain had been saved,
Nay, purer glory reached, had you been throned
As woman only, holding all your art
As attribute to that dear sovereignty--
Concentering your power in home delights
Which penetrate and purify the world.

Armgart will not listen; her whole heart is enlisted in music. She says to
the Graf,--

I will live alone and pour my pain
With passion into music, where it turns
To what is best within my better self.

A year later Armgart's throat has failed, and her career has ended in
nothing. Then her servant and friend, Walpurga, who has devoted her life to
Armgart, speaks that lesson George Eliot would convey in this little story,
that a true life is a life of service. Walpurga chides Armgart's false
ambition in these words:

I but stand
As a small symbol for the mighty sum
Of claims unpaid to needy myriads;
I think you never set your loss beside
That mighty deficit. Is your work gone--
The prouder queenly work that paid itself
And yet was overpaid with men's applause!
Are you no longer chartered, privileged,
But sunk to simple woman's penury,
To ruthless Nature's chary average--
Where is the rebel's right for you alone?
Noble rebellion lifts a common load;
But what is he who flings his own load off
And leaves his fellows toiling? Rebel's right?
Say, rather, the deserter's.

Armgart learns from her master, the old and noble Leo, that he had also
been ambitious, that he had won o