FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171  
172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   >>   >|  
m every minute of the day, but she had drawn new strength and steadfastness from his kindly counsels. He understood both the big tragedies of life--which often hold some brief, perfect memory to make them bearable--and those incessant, gnat-like irritations which uncongenial fellowship involves. Somehow he had the faculty of relegating small personal vexations to their proper place in the scheme of things--thrusting them far into the background. It was as though someone drew you to the window and, ignoring the small, man-made flower-beds of the garden with their insistent crop of weeds, the circumscribed lawns, and the foolish, twisting paths that led to nowhere, pointed you to the distant landscape where the big breadths of light and shadow, the broad draughtmanship of God, stretched right away to the dim blue line of the horizon. CHAPTER XX THE CAGE DOOR For the first few days succeeding Lord St. John's departure from Trenby Hall, matters progressed comparatively smoothly. Then, as his influence waned with absence, the usual difficulties reappeared, the old hostilities--hostilities of outlook and generation--arising once more betwixt Nan and Lady Gertrude. Mutual understanding is impossible between two people whose sense of values is fundamentally opposed, and music, the one thing that had counted all through Nan's life, was a matter of supreme unimportance to the older woman. She regarded it--or, indeed, any other form of art, for that matter--as amongst the immaterial fripperies of life, something to be put aside at any moment in favour of social or domestic duties. It signified even less to her than it did to Eliza McBain, to whom it at least represented one of the lures of Satan--and for this reason could not be entirely discounted. Since Sandy's stimulating visit Nan had devoted considerable time to the composition of her concerto, working at it with a recrudescence of her old enthusiasm, and the work had been good for her. It had carried her out of herself, preventing her from dwelling continually upon the past. Unfortunately, however, the hours she spent in the seclusion of the West Parlour were not allowed to pass without comment. "It seems to take you a long time to compose a new piece," remarked Isobel at dinner one day, the trite expression "new piece" very evidently culled from her school-day memories. Nan smiled across at her. "A concerto's a pretty big undertaking, you se
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171  
172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
concerto
 

hostilities

 

matter

 
duties
 

domestic

 

moment

 

favour

 

social

 

values

 

McBain


represented

 
people
 

signified

 
regarded
 
supreme
 

unimportance

 

opposed

 

fripperies

 

counted

 

immaterial


fundamentally

 

considerable

 

comment

 

remarked

 

compose

 
seclusion
 

Parlour

 

allowed

 

Isobel

 

dinner


smiled

 

pretty

 
undertaking
 

memories

 

school

 

expression

 

evidently

 

culled

 

stimulating

 

devoted


working
 
composition
 

reason

 

discounted

 

recrudescence

 
enthusiasm
 

continually

 
dwelling
 
Unfortunately
 

preventing