Best Rampel,—
You can come to-morrow morning, but go to the devil with your "Gracious Sir," (Gnädiger Herr). God alone should be addressed as "Gracious Lord."
This letter was published in the Beethoven number of Die Musik, February, 1902.
CHAPTER XVII
LAST QUARTETS
Every extraordinary man has a certain mission, which he is called upon to accomplish. If he has fulfilled it he is no longer needed on earth, in the same form, and Providence uses him for something else. But as everything here below happens in a natural way, the dæmons keep tripping him up until he falls at last. Thus it was with Napoleon, and many others. Mozart died in his thirty-sixth year. Raphael at the same age. Byron a little older. But all these had perfectly fulfilled their missions, and it was time for them to depart that others might still have something to do in a world made to last a long while.
—Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann.
