n
historic ground, where the famous musicians of the past had found
inspiration for their immortal works. And his thoughts spread their
wings and circled above his head; he saw himself already of these
masters' craft, their art his, he wrenching ever new secrets from them,
penetrating the recesses of their genius, becoming one of themselves.
In a vision as vivid as those that cross the brain in a sleepless
night, he saw a dark, compact multitude wait, with breath suspended, to
catch the notes that fell like raindrops from his fingers; saw himself
the all-conspicuous figure, as, with masterful gestures, he compelled
the soul that lay dormant in brass and strings, to give voice to, to
interpret to the many, his subtlest emotions. And he was overcome by a
tremulous compassion with himself at the idea of wielding such power
over an unknown multitude, at the latent nobility of mind and aim this
power implied.

Even when swinging back to the town, he had not shaken himself free of
dreams. The quiet of a foreign midday lay upon the streets, and there
were few discordant sounds, few passers-by, to break the chain of his
thought. He had movement, silence, space. And as is usual with
active-brained dreamers, he had little or no eye for the real life
about him; he was not struck by the air of comfortable prosperity, of
thriving content, which marked the great commercial centre, and he let
pass, unnoticed, the unfamiliar details of a foreign street, the
trifling yet significant incidents of foreign life. Such impressions as
he received, bore the stamp of his own mood. He was sensible, for
instance, in face of the picturesque houses that clustered together in
the centre of the town, of the spiritual GEMUTLICHKEIT, the absence of
any pomp or pride in their romantic past, which characterises the old
buildings of a German town. These quaint and stately houses, wedged one
into the other, with their many storeys, their steeply sloping roofs
and eye-like roof-windows, were still in sympathetic touch with the
trivial life of the day which swarmed in and about them. He wandered
leisurely along the narrow streets that ran at all angles off the
Market Place, one side of which was formed by the gabled RATHAUS, with
its ground-floor row of busy little shops; and, in fancy, he peopled
these streets with the renowned figures that had once walked them. He
looked up at the dark old houses in which great musicians had lived,
died and been born, and