"
"No. That is what I complain of. You feel nothing and think of
nothing while you are at work, and you will injure yourself
unconsciously. If you do these things you will certainly break
down."
She merely shrugged her shoulders and looked past me through the
window, an arrogant determination filling her blue eyes. The next
minute she was speaking rapidly, and with an intonation of
impatience in her voice.
"You know I am given over to the work--entirely, utterly. It is
useless to expect me to sacrifice it to anything. On the contrary,
everything must be sacrificed to it. Health, life itself, must be in
the second place. I only value my life for the sake of this talent.
Of course, I know if I lose my life I lose it too; but, equally, I
can produce nothing without work. If I am to succeed I must work
simply--it is necessity."
Each word was incisive, and seemed to cut slightly like falling
steel from those soft, warm lips. A sudden desire rushed through me
to teach her--at any rate, to exert myself to the utmost to teach
her--that her life was valuable to her for other things than the
capacity it gave to work. But I checked the words and the thoughts
that rose, acting on the same principle as had guided me hitherto.
To wake her to a sense of the pleasure and the gifts life holds,
without being able to confer either--that could not be any gain.
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