“We do not know whence our knowledge comes; the firmly inclosed seed requires the warm, moist, electric soil to sprout, to think, to express itself.  Music is the electric soil in which the soul lives, thinks, invents.  Philosophy is a precipitation of its electric spirit, and the need that philosophy feels of basing everything on an ultimate principle is in turn relieved by music.  Although the spirit is not master of what it creates through the mediation of music, yet it experiences ecstasy in this creation.  In this way every genuine creation of art is independent, mightier than the artist himself, and through its expression it returns to its divine source; it is concerned with man only insomuch as it bears witness to divine mediation in him.

“Music gives the spirit its relation to harmony.  A thought, even when isolated, still senses the totality of relationship in the spirit; thus every thought in music is most intimately and inseparably related to the totality of harmony, which is unity.  Everything electric stimulates the spirit to fluent, precipitous, musical creation.  I myself am of an electrical nature.” * * *

He took me to a grand rehearsal with full orchestra, and I sat back in a box all alone in the large, unlighted hall, and saw this mighty spirit wield his authority.  Oh, Goethe I No emperor, no king, is so conscious of his power, so conscious that all power radiates from him, as this same Beethoven is, who only now in the garden was searching for the source of his inspiration.  If I understood him as I feel him, I should be omniscient.  There he stood, so firmly resolved, his gestures and features expressing the perfection of his creation, anticipating every error, every misconception; every breath obeyed his will, and everything was set into the most rational activity by the superb presence of his spirit.  One might well prophesy that such a spirit will reappear in a later reincarnation as ruler of the universe!

November 4, 1810.

Dost thou want me to tell thee of bygone days, how, when thy spirit was revealed to me, I gained control over my own spirit in order the more perfectly to embrace and love thine?  And why should I not become dizzy with ecstasy?  Is the prospect of a fall so fearful after all?  Just as the precious jewel, touched by a single ray of light, reflects a thousand colors, so also thy beauty, illumined only by the ray of my enthusiasm, will be enriched a thousandfold.

It is only when everything is comprehended that the Something can prove its full worth, and so thou wilt understand when I tell thee that the bed in which thy mother brought thee into the world had blue checkered hangings.  She was eighteen years old at the time, and had been married a year.  In this connection she remarked that thou wouldst remain forever young and that thy heart would never grow old, since thou hadst received thy mother’s youth into the bargain.  Thou didst ponder the matter for three days before