“Countess S. brought him on her return from ——, German words by Herr Scholz, written for his first mass. He opened the paper as we were seated together at the table. When he came to the ‘ Qui tollis,’ tears streamed from his eyes, and he was obliged to stop, so deeply was he moved by the inexpressibly beautiful words. He cried, ‘Ja! so habe ich gefühlt, als ich dieses schrieb,’ ‘yes, this was what I felt when I wrote it.’ It was the first and last time I ever saw him in tears.”
They were such tears as might have been shed on the jubilee of what he loved so much, Schiller’s Ode to Joy.
“Be welcome, millions,
This embrace for the whole world.”
Happy the man, who gave the bliss to Beethoven of feeling his thought not only recognised, but understood. Years of undiscerning censure, and scarcely less undiscerning homage, are obliterated by the one true vibration from the heart of a fellow-man. Then the genius is at home on earth, when another soul knows not only what he writes, but what he felt when he wrote it. “The music is not the lyre nor the hand which plays upon it, but when the two meet, that arises which is neither, but gives each its place.”
A pleasure almost as deep was given him on this occasion. Rossini had conquered the German world also; the public had almost forgotten Beethoven. A band of friends, in whose hearts the care for his glory and for the high, severe culture of art was still living, wrote him a noble letter, in which they entreated him to give to the public one of his late works, and, by such a musical festival, eclipse at once these superficial entertainments. The spirit of this letter is thoughtful, tender, and shows so clearly the German feeling as to the worship of the beautiful, that it would have been well to translate it, but that it is too long. It should be a remembrancer of pride and happiness to those who signed their names to it. Schindler knew when it was to be sent, and after Beethoven had time to read it, he went to him.
