Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/227

 I don’t know what your experience has been, but I find it hard to remain patient with the whole world of people who delight in calling themselves “artists”. (If English has any meaning, an artist is a person who paints, not a fiddler or a poet or an actor.) So much fuss has been made of them that their heads have really been turned. Before I had quite decided what music to have, I heard a young man playing at Connie Maitland’s. Quite well he played—for an Englishman, and I asked Connie to present him.

“I have a few friends dining on the eighteenth,” I said, “and I was wondering whether you would be so very kind as to come and give us an opportunity of hearing a little more of your too delightful playing.” These people expect to be flattered, as no doubt you know. . . “The eighteenth?,” he repeated. “I’m not dining anywhere that night, so far as I know; I will come with great pleasure.” The impudence of the man! “Dinner itself. . .” I said. “My dining-room is so absurdly small that I am absolutely restricted in numbers. But afterwards. . . I have asked a few friends, real music-lovers; say about half-past ten. The address—”

“Oh,” he interrupted, “I’ll ask you to get