ords. Indeed he would be thinking so much of _it_ that he
could not give the necessary attention to the words, and if he forced
himself to do so the river of the music would soon dry up, as if sucked
in by thirsty sands. Nay, to express my meaning more clearly, I will
say that, at the moment of his musical inspiration, all _words_, all
verbal expressions, would appear insufficient to him, nay flat, and
miserably inadequate; and it would be necessary for him to come down to
a lower level, to go, like a beggar asking for alms, in quest of those
words, necessities of the lower requirements of his existence. Would
not his wings soon be paralysed, like a caged eagle's, so that he would
try to soar sunwards in vain?'

"_Ferdinand_. 'One listens to all this, of course; but do you know, my
dear friend, that what you say does not so much convince me as it seems
to indicate your own _personal_ repugnance to working your way,
laboriously, through all the necessary _scenas_, _arias_, _duettos_,
etc., till you get to the point of composing the music.'

"_Ludwig_. 'Perhaps; but I renew an old reproach. Why, in the days when
you and I were living in such constant intimacy, would you never write
me a libretto, eagerly as I begged you to do so?'

"_Ferdinand_. 'Because I think it the most thankless labour imaginable.
You must allow that no demands could be more exacting than those which
you composers make upon us; and if you say that a musician can't be
expected to acquire the technical skill which the mechanical part of
poetry-writing demands, I, again, think that it is too much to expect
of a poet that he should be continually harassing himself about the
precise structure of your _terzettes_, _quartettes_, _finales_, etc.,
so as not to run the risk of transgressing against some of those forms,
which you look upon--Heaven knows why--as so many matters fixed and
established for ever and ever, like the laws of the Medes and Persians.
After we have expended our best efforts with extremity of mental
tension, in trying to apprehend all the situations of our story in a
true poetical spirit, and to express them in the most eloquent
language, and the smoothest and most finished versification, it is
quite terrible how you run your pens through our finest lines, in the
most relentless manner, and spoil our happiest ideas and expressions,
by inverting them, or altering them, or drowning them in the music. I
say this merely with reference to the