To Pastor Bauer, Beszig.
Leipzig, May 23rd, 1846.
Your kind letter and the book caused me great pleasure. I received the parcel some weeks since, but as I have very little time left for reading, and as a work like yours cannot be quickly perused by a layman, you will be able to understand the delay in expressing my thanks. I have learnt much from your book, for it is in fact the first summary of Church history that I ever read; but from this very circumstance you are mistaken in my position if you think I could attempt either verbally or in writing to maintain my own opinions on such a matter, when opposed to yours, and that I might see it in a different light as a musician, etc. The only point of view from which I can consider such questions is that of a learner, and I confess to you that the older I become, the more do I perceive the importance of first learning and then forming an opinion; not the latter previous to the former, and not both simultaneously. In this I certainly differ much from very many of our leading men of the present day, both in music and theology. They declare that he alone can form a right judgment who has learned nothing, and indeed requires to learn nothing; and my rejoinder is, that there is no man living who does not require to learn. I think, therefore, that it is more than ever the duty of every one to be very industrious in his sphere, and to concentrate all his powers to accomplish the very best of which he is capable; and thus the recent Church movements are more unknown to me than you probably believe (perhaps more than you would approve), and I rejoice that the very reverse is the case with you. I cannot, in fact, understand a theologian who at this moment does not come forward, or who feels no sympathy in these matters; but just as little, many of those non-theologians whom I often see, and who talk of reformation and of improvement, but who are equally incompetent to know or to comprehend either the present or the past, and who, in short, wish to introduce dilettanteism into the highest questions.
I believe it is this very dilettanteism which plays us many a trick, because it is of a twofold nature,—necessary, useful, and beneficial, when coupled with sincere interest and modest reserve, for then it furthers and promotes all things,—but culpable and contemptible when fed on vanity, and when obtrusive, arrogant, and self-sufficient. For instance, there are few artists for whom I feel so much respect, as for a genuine dilettante of the first class, and for no single artist have I so little respect as for a dilettante of the second class. But where am I wandering to?...