They were most hospitable people, these good Lintots, and had many
friends, and gave many parties, which my miserable shyness prevented me
from enjoying to the full. They were both too stiff and too free.
In the drawing-room, Mrs. Lintot and one or two other ladies, severely
dressed, would play the severest music in a manner that did not mitigate
its severity. They were merciless! It was nearly always Bach, or Hummel,
or Scarlatti, each of whom, they would say, could write both like an
artist and a gentleman--a very rare but indispensable combination,
it seemed.
Other ladies, young and middle-aged, and a few dumb-struck youths like
myself, would be suffered to listen, but never to retaliate--never to
play or sing back again.
If one ventured to ask for a song without words by Mendelssohn--or a
song with words, even by Schubert, even with German words--one was
rebuked and made to blush for the crime of musical frivolity.
Meanwhile, in Lintot's office (built by himself in the back garden),
grave men and true, pending the supper hour, would smoke and sip
spirits-and-water, and talk shop; formally at first, and with much
politeness. But gradually, feeling their way, as it were, they would
relax into social unbuttonment, and drop the "Mister" before each
other's names (to be resumed next morning), and indulge in lively
professional chaff, which would soon become personal and free and
boisterous--a good-humored kind of warfare in which I did not shine, for
lack of quickness and repartee.
Pages:
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139