of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows
as a flower does,--she will wither without sun; she will decay in
her sheath, as a narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough;
she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without
help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she
must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as
in body, must have always


"Her household motions light and free
And steps of virgin liberty."


Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field.
It knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good
ones too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it,
which you had not the slightest thought would have been so.

Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her
practice in all accomplishments be accurate and thorough, so as to
enable her to understand more than she accomplishes. I say the
finest models--that is to say, the truest, simplest, usefullest.
Note those epithets: they will range through all the arts. Try
them in music, where you might think them the least applicable. I
say the truest, that in which the notes most closely and faithfully
express the meaning of the words, or the character of intended
emotion; again, the simplest, that in which the meaning and melody
are attained with the fewest and most significant notes possible;
and, finally, the usefullest, that music which makes the best words
most beautiful, which enchants them in our memories each with its