Obviously a new edition of Hercules and the Wagoner.
“He was the most open of men, and told unhesitatingly all he thought, unless the subject were art and artists. On these subjects he was often inaccessible, and put off the inquirer with wit or satire.” “On two subjects he would never talk, thorough bass and religion. He said they were both things complete within themselves, (in sich abgeschlossene dinge,) about which men should dispute no farther.”
“As to the productions of his genius, let not a man or a nation, if yet in an immature stage, seek to know them. They require a certain degree of ripeness in the inner man to be understood.
“From the depth of the mind arisen, she, (Poesie,) is only to the depth of the mind either useful or intelligible.”
I cannot conclude more forcibly than by quoting Beethoven’s favourite maxim. It expresses what his life was, and what the life must be of those who would become worthy to do him honour.
“The barriers are not yet erected which can say to aspiring talent and industry, thus far and no farther.”
Beethoven is the only one of these five artists whose life can be called unfortunate. They all found early the means to unfold their powers, and a theatre on which to display them. But Beethoven was, through a great part of his public career, deprived of the satisfaction of guiding or enjoying the representation of his thoughts. He was like a painter who could never see his pictures after they are finished. Probably, if he could himself have directed the orchestra, he would have been more pliable in making corrections with an eye to effect. Goethe says that no one can write a successful drama without familiarity with the stage, so as to know what can be expressed, what must be merely indicated. But in Beethoven’s situation, there was not this reaction, so that he clung more perseveringly to the details of his work than great geniuses do, who live in more immediate contact with the outward world. Such an one will, indeed, always answer like Mozart to an ignorant criticism, “There are just as many
