"Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught," said Herr Klesmer, quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. "Still, you are not quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair organ. But you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing is beneath you. It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state of culture--a dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff--the passion and thought of people without any breadth of horizon. There is a sort of self-satisfied folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of deep, mysterious passion--no conflict--no sense of the universal. It makes men small as they listen to it. Sing now something larger. And I shall see."

"Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught," said Herr Klesmer, quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. "Still, you are not quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair voice. But you produce your notes badly; and that dawdling, see-saw kind of music is beneath you. It has no breadth of horizon. There is a self-satisfied folly about such melody; no deep, mysterious passion - no conflict - no sense of the universal. It makes men small as they listen to it. Sing now something larger."
