We must not forget in the first days, as we leave our music, that the
path we have taken since we came together is the hardest; not for
always, but for now. The right path is hard at first--the wrong one is
hard always.

We will understand it all better in other days if we remain faithful
now. If, however, we should forget for a moment that art demands our
loyalty, there will be no joy or peace in it for us. Worse, perhaps,
than starting out upon the wrong path, is the deserting of the right
one. Sometimes out of impatience we do this; out of impatience and
self-love, which is the worst of all. "Truth is the beginning of all
good, and the greatest of all evils is self-love."[62]

With the trials that music costs us, with its pains and
discouragements, we might easily doubt all these promises which are
contained in our ideals, but we shall be forever saved from deserting
them if we remember that these ideals have been persistently held by
great men. They have never given them up. One of the strongest
characteristics of Bach and of Beethoven was their determination to
honor their thoughts. Sometimes we find the same persistence and
faithfulness in lesser men.

I am sure you will see this faith beautifully lived in the few facts
we have about the life of Johann Christian Kittel, a pupil of Bach,
and it is strongly brought out by the pretty story told of him, that
when pleased with a pupil's work he would draw aside a curtain which
covered a portrait of Bach and let the faithful one gaze upon it for a
moment. That was to him the greatest reward he could give for
faithfulness in the music task.