Parisians, the — Volume 01 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 72 of 83 (86%)
page 72 of 83 (86%)
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he even said that my favourite airs were "touchants et gracieux."
And so he would have left me, but I stopped him timidly, and said, "Tell me frankly, do you think that with time and study I could compose music such as singers equal to myself would sing to?" "You mean as a professional composer?" "Well, yes." "And to the abandonment of your vocation as a singer?" "Yes." "My dear child, I should be your worst enemy if I encouraged such a notion: cling to the career in which you call be greatest; gain but health, and I wager my reputation on your glorious success on the stage. What can you be as a composer? You will set pretty music to pretty words, and will be sung in drawing-rooms with the fame a little more or less that generally attends the compositions of female amateurs. Aim at something higher, as I know you would do, and you will not succeed. Is there any instance in modern times, perhaps in any times, of a female composer who attains even to the eminence of a third-rate opera-writer? Composition in letters may be of no sex. In that Madame Dudevant and your friend Madame de Grantmesnil can beat most men; but the genius of musical composition is _homme_, and accept it as a compliment when I say that you are essentially _femme_." He left me, of course, mortified and humbled; but I feel he is right as regards myself, though whether in his depreciation of our whole sex I |
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