eem to me the only pleasure
in which the Austrians are willing to dispense with their music, which
here persecutes us in every direction. In Carlsbad a musician declared
to me that music as a profession was a sour crust. I replied that the
musicians were better off than the visitors. "How so?" asked he. Said I,
"Surely they can eat without music."

The good man went away ashamed, and I felt sorry for him, though my
remark was quite in place, for it is really cruel in this manner to
torture patients and convalescents. I can, indeed, endure much, but
when, after coming from the opera, I sit down to supper, and am annoyed
instantly by the strains of a harp or a singer, jarring with what I have
been hearing, it is too much; and, wretch that I am, I am forgetting
that this scribble is also too much. So farewell. God bless you!

_Vienna, July_ 29, 1819. Beethoven, whom I should have liked to see once
more in this life, lives somewhere in this country, but nobody can tell
me where. I wanted to write to him, but I am told he is almost
unapproachable, as he is almost without hearing. Perhaps it is better
that we should remain as we are, for it might make me cross to find him
cross.

Much is thought of music here, and this in contrast to Italy, which
reckons itself the "only saving Church." But the people here are really
deeply cultured in music. It is true that they are pleased with
everything, but only the best music survives. They listen gladly to a
mediocre opera which is well cast; but a first-class work, even if not
given in the best style, remains permanently with them.

Beethoven is extolled to the heavens, because he toils strenuously and
is still alive. But it is Haydn who presents to them their national
humour, like a pure fountain unmingled with any other stream, and it is
he who lives among them, because he belongs to them. They seem each day
to forget him, and each day he rises to life again among them.

_III.--"Poetry and Truth"_

_Weimar, March_ 29, 1827. The completion of a work of art in itself is
the eternal, indispensable requisite. Aristotle, who had perfection
before him, must have thought of the effect. What a pity! Were I yet, in
these peaceful times, possessed of my youthful energies, I would
surrender myself entirely to the study of Greek, in spite of all the
difficulties of which I am conscious. Nature and Aristotle would be my
aim. We can form no idea of all that this man perceived, saw, noti