Poor grand old Beethoven! Can anything be more pitiful to think of than his deafness?
Yet how splendidly he bore up against it! And Chopin, too--so delicate in health that he was too often morbid even in his music.
Strength is needed to accomplish great things--the double strength of body and soul." "Are you, too, a musician ?" I inquired.
"No.

I love music passionately, and I play a little on the organ in our private chapel; but I follow a different art altogether.

I am a mere imitator of noble form--I am a sculptress." "You ?" I said in some wonder, looking at the very small, beautifully formed white hand that lay passively on the edge of the couch beside me.

"You make statues in marble like Michael Angelo ?" "Like Angelo ?" murmured Zara; and she lowered her brilliant eyes with a reverential gravity.

"No one in these modern days can approach the immortal splendour of that great master.