For the life of me I cannot rightly understand the meaning of your recent question and discussion, or what answer I am to give you. Universality, and everything bordering on æsthetics, makes me forthwith quite dumb and dejected. Am I to tell you how you ought to feel? You strive to discriminate between an excess of sensibility and genuine feeling, and say that a plant may bloom itself to death.
But no such thing exists as an excess of sensibility; and what is designated as such is, in fact, rather a dearth of it. The soaring, elevated emotions inspired by music, so welcome to listeners, are no excess; for let him who can feel do so to the utmost of his power, and even more if possible; and if he dies of it, it will not be in sin, for nothing is certain but what is felt or believed, or whatever term you may choose to employ; moreover, the bloom of a plant does not cause it to perish save when forced, and forced to the uttermost; and, in that case, a sickly blossom no more resembles a healthy one, than sickly sentimentality resembles true feeling.
I am not acquainted with Herr W——, nor have I read his book; but it is always to be deplored when any but genuine artists attempt to purify and restore the public taste. On such a subject words are only pernicious; deeds alone are efficient. For even if people do really feel this antipathy towards the present, they cannot as yet give anything better to replace it, and therefore they had best let it alone. Palestrina effected a reformation during his life; he could not do so now any more than Sebastian Bach or Luther. The men are yet to come who will advance on the straight road; and who will lead others onwards, or back to the ancient and right path, which ought, in fact, to be termed the onward path; but they will write no books on the subject.
To Pastor Bauer, Beszig.
Berlin, April 6th, 1833.
My work, about which I had recently many doubts, is finished; and now, when I look it over, I find that, quite contrary to my expectations, it satisfies myself. I believe it has become a good composition; but be that as it may, at all events I feel that it shows progress, and that is the main point. So long as I feel this to be the case, I can enjoy life and be happy; but the most bitter moments I ever endured, or ever could have imagined, were during last autumn, when I had my misgivings on this subject. Would that this mood of happy satisfaction could but be hoarded and stored up! But the worst of it is, that I feel sure I shall have forgotten it all when similar evil days recur, and I can devise no means of guarding against this, nor do I believe that you can suggest any. As, however, a whole mass of music is at this moment buzzing in my head, I trust that it will not, please God, quickly pass away.
Strange that this should be the case at a time, in other respects so imbued with deep fervour and earnestness, for I shall leave this place feeling more solitary than when I came. I have found my nearest relatives, my parents, my brother and sisters, alone unchanged; and this is a source of happiness for which I certainly cannot be too grateful to God; indeed, now that I am (what is called) independent, I have learned to love and honour, and understand my parents better than ever; but then I see many branching off to the right and to the left, whom I had hoped would always go along with me; and yet I could not follow them on their path, even if I wished to do so.
The longer I stay in Berlin, the more do I miss Rietz, and the more deeply do I deplore his death. X—— declares that the fault lies very much with myself, because I insist on having people exactly as I fancy they ought to be, and that I have too much party spirit for or against a person; but it is this very spirit, the want of which I feel so much here. I hear plenty of opinions given, but where there is no fervour there can be no sound judgment; and where it does exist, though it may indeed not unfrequently lead to error, still it often tends towards progress too, and then we need not take refuge in past times, or anywhere else, but rather rejoice in the present, if only for bringing with it in its course a spring or an Easter festival.
To Pastor Julius Schubring, Dessau.
Coblenz, September 6th, 1833.