But as far as this unmanliness is concerned, I confess, as I have previously done, to falling a prey to this weakness whenever I find myself confronted with a confused mass of sensations of lesser importance, especially with goodwill, reverence, and gratitude. Whenever I was able to define the opposing factors sharply to myself in the rejection of the bad as well as in the perseverance in a conviction, I displayed both before and after this period a firmness which, indeed, might even be called obstinacy. But in general it may safely be asserted: Only the union of character and talent produces what is called genius.
On one of these days I was also commanded to appear before the grand duke, whom I met in all his simplicity and unaffectedness in the so-called Roman House. He conversed with me for over an hour, and my description of Austrian conditions seemed to interest him. Not he, but most of the others, hinted at the desire of acquiring my services for the Weimar theatre—a desire that did not coincide with my own inclination.
When on the fourth day of my stay I paid my farewell visit to Goethe, he was friendly, but somewhat reserved. He expressed astonishment at my leaving Weimar so soon, and added that they would all be glad to hear from me occasionally. "They," then, would be glad, not he. Even in later years he did not do me justice, for I do consider myself the best poet that has appeared after him and Schiller, in spite of the gulf that separates me from them. That all this did not lessen my love and reverence for him, I need scarcely say.
* * * * *
BEETHOVEN AS A LETTER WRITER
BY WALTER R. SPALDING, A.M.
Associate Professor of Music, Harvard University
The first musician to whom a place among the representative masters of German literature may justly be assigned is Beethoven, and this fact is so significant and so closely connected with the subsequent development both of music and literature that the reasons for such a statement should be set forth in detail. Although Haydn kept a note-book, still extant, during his two visits to London, and although Mozart wrote the average number of letters, from no one of the musicians prior to Beethoven have we received, in writings which can be classed as literature, any expression of their personalities. Their intellectual and imaginative activity was manifested almost exclusively in music, and their interest in whatever lay outside the musical horizon was very slight. In the written words of neither Haydn nor Mozart do we find any reference to the poetical and prose works of Germany or of other nations, nor is there any evidence that their imaginations were influenced by suggestions drawn from literature. Famous though they were as musicians by reason of their sincere and masterful handling of the raw material of music, there is so little depth of thought in their compositions that many of them have failed to live. Neither Haydn nor Mozart can be considered as a great character and we miss the note of sublimity in their music, although it often has great vitality and charm. Beethoven, however, was a thinker in tones and often in words.
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN]
His symphonies are human documents, and even had he not written a single note of music we have sufficient evidence in verbal form to convince us that his personality was one of remarkable power and that music was only one way, though, to be sure, the foremost, of expressing the depth of his feeling and the range of his mental activity. In distinction from his predecessors, who were merely musicians, Beethoven was a man first and a musician second, and the lasting vitality in his works is due to their broad human import; they evidently came from a character endowed with a rich and fertile imagination, from one who looked at life from many sides. Several of his most famous compositions were founded on works of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller, and the Heroic Symphony bears witness to his keen interest in the momentous political changes of his time and in the growth of untrammeled human individuality. No mere manipulator of sounds and rhythms could have impressed the fastidious nobility of Vienna to the high degree chronicled by contemporary testimony. Beethoven wished to be known as a Tondichter, i.e., a first-hand creator, and his whole work was radically different from the rather cautious and imitative methods which had characterized former composers. It was through the cultivated von Breuning family of Bonn that the young Beethoven became acquainted with English literature, and his growing familiarity with it exerted a strong influence upon his whole life and undoubtedly increased the natural vigor of his imagination, for the literature of England surpassed anything which had so far been produced by Germany. Later, in 1823, when the slavery debates were going on in Parliament, he used to read with keen interest the speeches of Lord Brougham.