Macleod of Dare, page 79 by William Black
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to it; there must be no distracting cares; I will look for the missing lines myself."
"I am quite sure, papa," said Miss Carry, spitefully, "that she was far more anxious about these cutlets than about her new part this morning. She was half a dozen times to the kitchen. I didn't see her reading the book much."
"The res angustæ domi," said the father, sententiously, "sometimes interfere, where people are not too well off. But that is necessary. What is not necessary is that Gerty should take my troubles over to herself, and disturb her formation of this new character, which ought to be growing up in her mind almost insensibly, until she herself will scarcely be aware how real it is. When she steps on to the stage she ought to be no more Gertrude White than you or I. The artist loses himself. He transfers his soul to his creation. His heart beats in another breast; he sees with other eyes. You will excuse me, Sir Keith, but I keep insisting on this point to my daughter. If she ever becomes a great artist, that will be the secret of her success. And she ought never to cease from cultivating the habit. She ought to be ready at any moment to project herself, as it were, into any character. She ought to practise so as to make of her own emotions an instrument that she can use at will. It is a great demand that art makes on the life of an artist. In fact, he ceases to live for himself. He becomes merely a medium. His most secret experiences are the property of the world at large, once they have been transfused and moulded by his personal skill."
And so he continued talking, apparently for the instruction of his daughter, but also giving his guest clearly to understand that Miss Gertrude White was not as other women but rather as one set apart for the high and inexorable sacrifice demanded by art. At the end of his lecture he abruptly asked Macleod if he had followed him. Yes, he had followed him, but in rather a bewildered way. Or had he some confused sense of self-reproach, in that