I said that I could never give up my singing.

Can you picture the self-importance of that?
Why, it doesn't seem to me to matter two straws whether I do or not.

Naturally, I don't want to earn my living by it any more, but whether I sing or not doesn't matter.

And even as the words are in my mouth I try to imagine myself not singing any more, and I can't.

It's become part of me, and while I blush to think of what I said to Hermann, I wonder whether it's not true." She came and sat down by him again.
"I believe you have got enough artistic instinct to understand that, Michael," she said, "and to know what a tremendous help it is to one's art to be a professional, and to be judged seriously.