The desire for knowledge shapes a man.

Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.

One of them had a large wooden sign nailed to its door proclaiming, NO SYMPATHY! I wondered what non-arcane visitors might think of the warning.

Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician's curse.

How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way

You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.

...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.