For the first time he spoke in words upon the subject, and gravely asked--for that question the barbiton, eloquent as it was, could not express distinctly--what was to be the opera, and what the part?
And Viola as gravely answered that she was pledged to the Cardinal not to reveal.

Pisani said nothing, but disappeared with the violin; and presently they heard the Familiar from the house-top (whither, when thoroughly out of humour, the musician sometimes fled), whining and sighing as if its heart were broken.
The affections of Pisani were little visible on the surface.

He was not one of those fond, caressing fathers whose children are ever playing round their knees; his mind and soul were so thoroughly in his art that domestic life glided by him, seemingly as if THAT were a dream, and the heart the substantial form and body of existence.

Persons much cultivating an abstract study are often thus; mathematicians proverbially so.

When his servant ran to the celebrated French philosopher, shrieking, "The house is on fire, sir!" "Go and tell my wife then, fool!" said the wise man, settling back to his problems; "do _I_ ever meddle with domestic affairs ?" But what are mathematics to music--music, that not only composes operas, but plays on the barbiton?
Do you know what the illustrious Giardini said when the tyro asked how long it would take to learn to play on the violin?
Hear, and despair, ye who would bend the bow to which that of Ulysses was a plaything, "Twelve hours a day for twenty years together!" Can a man, then, who plays the barbiton be always playing also with his little ones?
No, Pisani; often, with the keen susceptibility of childhood, poor Viola had stolen from the room to weep at the thought that thou didst not love her.