symphony at a performance
of the Conservatory, whose concerts were always splendidly and
carefully executed, and, as before, it stirred his inmost soul. Once
more his genius came to his rescue. He felt intuitively--what we now
know with historical certainty--that this work was born of the same
spirit which bore Faust, and thus in him also this "ever restless
spirit seeking for something new" was called into being and activity.
The overture to Faust, in reality the prelude of a Faust symphony,
tells us in tones of mighty resolve that his power to do and to will
still lived, and would not yield till it had performed its part. This
was toward the close of the year 1840.

"The God, who in my breast resides,
Can deeply stir the inner sources;
Though all my energies he guides,
He cannot change external forces.
Thus by the burden of my days oppressed,
Death is desired, and life a thing unblest."

With such a confession he regained strength to battle against Parisian
superficiality, which even in the sacred sphere of art seemed to seek
only for outward success and to admire whatever fashion dictated. His
criticisms on the condition of life and art in Paris are very severe.
Even the noble Berlioz does not escape censure from the artist's
stand-point, while Liszt, who resided there at the time, he had not
yet learned to appreciate. But again the saving genius of his art,
German music, rose resplendent, and she it was who recalled him to his
own self and to art.

He now entirely gave up the "Liebesverbot," as he felt that he could
not respect himself unless he did so. He thought of his native land.
A heroic patriotism seized him, although tinged with a political
bearing, for he did not forget the Bundestag and its resistance to
every movement for liberty, and yet withal he beheld the coming
grandeur of his fatherland. Now he himself first fully comprehended
Rienzi's words about his noble bride, whom he saw dishonored and
defiled, and a deep anger awakened in him those mighty exhorting
accents which his enthusiasm had already intoned in Rienzi's first
speech to the nobility and the people, and which had not been heard in
Germany since Schiller's days. As Rienzi resolved not to rest until
his proud Roma was crowned as queen of the world, so now there flashed
through him also the conviction, as he has so beautifully said in
speaking of Beethoven's music, that the genius of Germany was destined