The great tide swept me on. When upon earth had he created sound like this? Where upon earth had we heard its like? There he is, one listening nerve from head to foot, he who used to stand deaf in the middle of his own orchestra—desolate no more, denied no more forever, all the heavenly senses possible to Beethoven awake to the last delicate response; all the solemn faith in the invisible, in the holy, which he had made his own, triumphant now; all the powers of his mighty nature in action like a rising storm—there stands Beethoven immortally alive.
What knew we of music, I say, who heard its earthly prototype? It was but the tuning of the instruments before the eternal orchestra shall sound. Soul! swing yourself free upon this mighty current. Of what will Beethoven tell us whom he dashes on like drops?
As the pæan rises, I bow my life to understand. What would he with us whom God chose to make Beethoven everlastingly? What is the burden of this master’s message, given now in Heaven, as once on earth? Do we hear aright? Do we read the score correctly?
“Holy—holy”—
A chorus of angel voices, trained since the time when morning stars sang together with the sons of God, take up the words:
“Holy, holy, HOLY is the Lord.”
. . . . . . . . .
When the oratorio has ended, and we glide out, each hushed as a hidden thought, to his own ways, I stay beneath a linden-tree to gather breath. A fine sound, faint as the music of a dream, strikes my ringing ears, and, looking up, I see that the leaf above my head is singing. Has it, too, been one of the great chorus yonder? Did he command the forces of nature, as he did the seraphs of Heaven, or the powers of earth?
The strain falls away slowly from the lips of the leaf:
“Holy, holy, holy,”—