THE LESSON.
"All people value most what has cost them much labor."
--Aristotle.[38]
It is true that music is beautiful and that it gives us happiness and
comfort. But, nevertheless, music is hard to learn _for every one_;
harder for some than for others, but hard for all. It is well and best
that it should be so. We appreciate most highly that which we labor
for earnestly. Just imagine if every one could sing or play merely by
wishing it! Then music would be so common and so much the talent of
all that it would cease to give us joy. Why? Because one gained it by
a wish. That is not enough. From this can we learn to understand the
great secret of it all? I think we can. Let us see! The secret is
this: Music is a joy because it takes us out of ourselves and we work
hard to get it. Music teaches us what a wonderful power there is
within us, if we will only strive to bring it out. Education is good
for us for this same reason. As you learn more and more about words,
you will see more in this word Education.
It means to lead out _what is within us_. To lead music out of the
heart becomes the object, then, of your lessons. One cannot drive
music into you; it must be led out.
Where shall we look for music that it may be led out? Only in the
heart. That is where all is in every one of us. But often in our
hearts there is so much else, so much vanity, self-love, conceit, love
for other things, that the music is almost beyond reach. _Almost_, but
never entirely. In the heart of every one is music. But often it is
deep, deep down, covered by these other things. The older we grow and
the more other things we see and think about, the deeper and deeper
down does the music get.
It is like heaping rocks, and dirt, and sticks on a bubbling spring.
The spring is down there, bubbling freely beneath it all, still
striving to be as free and as songful as before; but it cannot. People
may come and go, may pass near to it, and hear not one of its sounds;
they may never suspect that there is such a thing ready to go on
merrily if it could.
When is the best time to lead water out of the spring, and music out
of the heart? Before other things begin to cover it. With music the
best time is in the early days, in childhood time--_in the first
days_. We shall hear those words many times. Then little by little the
bubbling spring of melody gains its independence; then, even if other
things do come in, they cannot bury the music out of sight. The spring
has been led forth _and has grown stronger_.
Thoughtful people who have suffered in learning--all people suffer in
learning, thoughtful ones the most--wonder how they can make the task
less painful for others. It will always cause us sorrow as well as joy
to learn, and many people spend their lives in trying to have as
little sorrow as possible come with the learning of the young. When
such people are true and good and thoughtful and _have infinite
kindness_, they are teachers; and the teachers impose tasks upon us
severely, perhaps, but with kind severity. They study us and music,
and they seek out the work each one of us must perform in order that
we may keep the heart-springs pure and uncovered. Further than this,
they find the way by which we shall lead the waters of life which flow
out of the heart-springs. They find the way whither they should flow
best.
Often in the doing of these things we find the lessons hard and
wearisome, infinitely hard to bear, difficult, and not attractive. We
wonder why all these things should be so, and 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 and
what we hear as we travel, that is the music of the heart; and the
music of the heart has in it the tones about us, and the greater and
lesser masters who thought them into beautiful forms. The masters are
as servants unto whom there is given to some one talent, to others
two, and four, and more, but to each according to his worth, to be
guided and employed in truth and honor; increased by each in
accordance to his strength.