“My anxiety brought me hither.”
“Anxiety!—and wherefore?”
“To-morrow your new opera is to be performed for the first time—you have so many enemies.—Ah! should the success of your noble creation not be answerable to its worth!”
“Then let it be so,” said Gluck, smiling.
“Can you say that with so much calmness?”
“Why not?—Do you think of devoting yourself to dramatic composition?”
“I wish with all my heart to do so, and should be very unhappy should I find my powers inadequate.”
“Prove them, young man! Go boldly to work: do not deliberate long; but what reveals itself to you lay hold on with glowing inspiration; plan and complete it with earnest heed. It will soon be shown, what you can do, now or in future. And if I judge you rightly, I think it will not go wrong with you! Yes—that is the great matter, that we deviate not from the way. But it is hard in itself; and men and the world make it yet harder for the artist. Many, of whom better things might have been hoped, fall in the conflict.
“You remain victor!”
“Hem—that is as one takes it. Nothing is perfect upon earth; and even if I have gone through life neither a fool nor a knave, still am I not without faults. Each, for good or evil, must be experienced before he can truly value the better part. To the generality, the All Benevolent has granted to know but little, till either what they have is irremediably wasted, or they are in danger of losing it. Happy he, who quickly apprehends, and holds it fast, nor lets it go, though his heart should be torn in the struggle. What will you say when I confess to you, that perception of the highest, the only good, came late, fearfully late, to me. When I look back on my earlier days, I am often astonished. Music was all to me from earliest youth. When a boy, in my home, in lovely Bohemia, I heard her voice, as a divine voice, in all that surrounded me—in the dense forest, in the gloomy ravine, the romantic valley—on the bold, stark cliff—in the cheerful hunter’s call, or the hoarse song of stream and torrent, her voice thrilled to my heart, like a sweet and glorious prophecy. All was clear to my youthful vision. Love commanded—and there was light! Then I thought there was nothing so great and god-like, that man, impotent man, could not achieve it. Too soon I learned that something was impossible. The royal eagle soars upward toward the sun; yet can he never reach the orb; and how soon are clipped the spirit’s wings! Then come harassing doubts, false ambition, thirst of gain, envy, disappointed vanity, worldly cares—the hateful gnomes of earth—that cling to you, and drag you downward, when you would soar like the eagle. So is it with the boy—the youth—with manhood—with old age. One perhaps redeems himself from folly; discerns and appreciates the right, and might create the beautiful. But with folly flies also youth, its ardor and its vigor; and there remains to him enthusiasm, passion for the sublime—and—a grave!”