Venturing little into public, Schubert, whose timidity was equal to his extreme sensibility, led a quiet and uneventful existence; but, like the Æolian harp, the soul of the lyric poet vibrates to the slightest breath. Needing no inspiration from outward events, it is moved from within by every variety of feeling. It was in the heart of Schubert that the tempests raged which make us tremble; there
breathed the sighs of love, and thence arose the wailings of despair. There also he found the sweet sunbeams, the fresh wind, and all the fragrance of the spring. Accustomed to live within himself, he took pleasure in analyzing his own impressions, which he confided to a journal, the greater part of which is unfortunately lost, but the few fragments that remain abound in deep thoughts.
We will quote a few of these confidential lines, which will form the best introduction to the immortal songs which he has left us, as well as the best commentary upon them:
“Sorrow,” he writes, “quickens the understanding and strengthens the soul; joy, on the contrary, renders it frivolous and selfish.”
“My works,” he says elsewhere, “are the offspring of my intellect and my grief. The world appears to prefer those which my grief alone has created.”
If we would know what were his thoughts upon faith, we find him writing as follows: “Man comes into the world with faith. It precedes by a long distance either reason or knowledge. To understand, we must first believe. Faith is the ground into which we must drive our first stake—the base for every other foundation.”
He one day wrote to his father: “My ‘Hymn to the Blessed Virgin’ has moved the hearts of all: every one seemed to think my piety something wonderful. This, I think, is because I never force my devotion, nor ever write hymns and prayers unless I feel a real inspiration to do so; for then only is it true devotion.”
On another occasion he comes home greatly impressed by a magnificent quintette of Mozart’s he had just been hearing, and on a
stray piece of paper writes these words: “The enchanting notes of Mozart’s music are still resounding in me. Thus do those beautiful productions, which time cannot efface, remain engraven in the depth of our souls. They show us, on beyond the darkness of this life, the certainty of a future full of glory and of love. O immortal Mozart! what imperishable instincts of a better life dost thou implant within us.”
O immortal Schubert! we in our turn may ask, Who shall express the emotions evoked by thee in our hearts?