The composer was silent a few moments, and appeared agitated. At last he said, "I know not your reasons for this mystery; but whatever they may be, I will honor them. I entreat you to speak frankly. You do not approve my present undertaking?"
"Frankly, I do not. Your genius lies not this way," and he raised some of the leaves of the opera music.
"How know you that?" asked the artist, a little mortified. "You, perhaps, despise the opera?"
"I do not. I love it; I honor it; I honor the noble creations of those great masters who have excelled in it. But you, my friend, are beckoned to a higher and holier path."
"How know you that?" repeated Beethoven, and this time his voice faltered.
"Because I know you; because I know the aspirations of your genius; because I know the misgivings that pursue you in the midst of success; the self-reproach that you suffer to be stifled in the clamor of popular praise. Even now, in the midst of your triumph, you are haunted by the consciousness that you are not fulfilling the true mission of the artist."
His piercing words were winged with truth itself. Beethoven buried his face in his hands.
"Woe to you," cried the unknown, "if you suppress, till they are wholly dead, your once earnest longings after the pure and the good! Woe to you, if, charmed by the syren song of vanity, you close your ears against the cry of a despairing world! Woe to you, if you resign unfulfilled the trust God committed to your hands, to sustain the weak and faltering soul, to give it strength to bear the ills of life, strength to battle against evil, to face the last enemy!"
"You are right—you are right!" exclaimed Beethoven, clasping his hands.