He seemed to lose heart in the business after that. He did make one or two feeble efforts to take up the work again when the six months had elapsed, but there was always the same coldness — the same want of sympathy on the part of the world to fight against; and, after a while, he despaired altogether, and advertised the instrument for sale at a great sacrifice — "owner having no further use for same" — and took to learning card tricks instead.

It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would think that Society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist a man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. But it doesn't!

I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes (я знал одного молодого человека, который учился играть на волынке), and you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend with (вы были бы удивлены, с каким противодействием ему приходилось бороться; amount — величина, количество). Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive what you could call active encouragement (даже от членов своей собственной семьи он не получал, что называется, активной поддержки; encouragement — ободрение, поддержка, поощрение). His father was dead against the business from the beginning (его отец был решительно против этого занятия с самого начала), and spoke quite unfeelingly on the subject (и говорил весьма жестоко по этому вопросу = о нем; unfeeling — бесчувственный, жестокий).

My friend used to get up early in the morning to practice (мой приятель вставал рано утром, чтобы упражняться), but he had to give that plan up, because of his sister (но ему пришлось отказаться от такого графика из-за своей сестры). She was somewhat religiously inclined, and she said it seemed such an awful thing to begin the day like that (она была довольно религиозной и сказала, что безбожно начинать день таким образом; inclined — расположенный, склонный к; awful — страшный, ужасный; безбожный, внушающий страх, благоговение).

receive [r'si:v] active ['aektv] religiously [r'lsl]

I knew a young fellow once, who was studying to play the bagpipes, and you would be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend with. Why, not even from the members of his own family did he receive what you could call active encouragement. His father was dead against the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the subject.

My friend used to get up early in the morning to practise, but he had to give that plan up, because of his sister. She was somewhat religiously inclined, and she said it seemed such an awful thing to begin the day like that.