"Poets on the whole cannot learn too much from musicians and painters. In these arts it is very striking, how necessary it is to take sparing advantage of the auxiliary means of the art, and how much depends upon proper relations. Those artists, on the contrary, can certainty accept from us the poetic independence, and the inner spirit of each composition and invention; particularly of every genuine work. The execution, not the material, is the object of the art. They should be more poetical, we more musical and graphic; yet both according to the manner and method of our art. You yourself will soon see in what songs you can best succeed; they will certainly be those, the subjects of which are easiest and nearest at hand. Therefore it can be said that poetry rests entirely upon experience. I know that in my younger days an object could hardly seem too distant and too unknown, for such I delighted most to sing. What was the result? An empty, meagre flash of words, without a spark of true poetry. Thence the tale[3] is the most difficult of tasks, and a young poet will seldom perform it correctly."
"I should like to hear one of yours," said Henry. "The few I have heard, though insignificant, have delighted me exceedingly."
"I will satisfy your wish this evening. I remember one which I composed when quite young, which is sufficiently evident still; yet it will entertain you the more instructively, for it will recall much that I have told you."
"Language," said Henry, "is indeed a little world in signs and sounds. As man rules over it, so would he rule the great world, and in it express himself freely. And in this very joy of expressing in the world what is without it, and of doing that which in reality was the primal object of our existence, lies the origin of poetry."
"It is very unfortunate," said Klingsohr, "that poetry has a particular name, and that poets constitute a particular class. It is not, however, strange. It arises from the natural action of the human sprit. Does not every man strive and compose at every moment?"
Just then Matilda entered the room. Klingsohr continued. "Consider love, for instance. In nothing is the necessity of poetry for the continuance of humanity so clear as in that. Love is silent; poesy alone can speak for it. Or rather love itself is nothing but the highest poetry of nature. Yet I will not tell you of things, with which you are better acquainted than I."
"Thou art indeed the father of love;" cried Henry, as he threw his arms around Matilda, and they both kissed his hand.
Klingsohr embraced them and went out.
"Dear Matilda," said Henry after a long kiss, "it seems to me like a dream, that thou art mine; yet it seems still more wonderful, that thou hast not been so always."
"It seems to me," said Matilda, "that I knew thee long, long ago."