heavy instruments. So I still beg for the minutes: your walks take up
hours enough.

Excessive and fatiguing feminine occupations, and drawing, or painting,
are by no means consistent with an earnest, practical musical education;
not only because both those occupations require so much time, but
because they deprive the fingers of the requisite pliability and
dexterity, while knitting, according to the latest discoveries, produces
an unnatural nervous excitement, which is unfavorable to healthy
progress in music. I at least, in my instruction on the piano, have
never been able to accomplish much with ladies who are devoted to
knitting, crochet, and embroidering. My dear ladies, you who have been
born in fortunate circumstances, and have been educated by your parents,
without regard to expense, should, at least, allow the poor girl in the
country, who is obliged to hide her talents under a bushel, the small
privilege of making a collar for your mother's or your aunt's birthday
present. I assure you your mother or your aunt, if you surprise them
instead with a fine piano performance, will be as much pleased as if you
strained your eyes and bent your back for days and nights over the
needle-work. And now as regards painting: painting and music, though
theoretically so nearly related, agree but poorly in practice; at least,
if you are in earnest about either. You say painters often play on the
guitar and the flute. That may be true: I will allow them those two
instruments. But piano-playing stands on a different footing, even for
mere amateurs. Sweet melodies on those instruments may afford an
agreeable companionship for the painter in his rambles through the woods
and over the hills; but piano-playing should be the friend of a
life-time, ennobled by the elevating enjoyment of lofty master-works.
Therefore, I beg you, do not dissipate your powers too much. Leave the
art of painting to your friends, who are either without talent for