follow;
from now on he was more and more unlike his fellows, more misunderstood,
isolated, a prophet in the wilderness. Placed here by Providence
specially for a unique work, he at first does not seem to have
understood it in this light, and reached out, the spirit of the man,
after happiness, occasional glimpses of which came to him, as it does to
all sooner or later. He soon found, however, that happiness was not
intended for him, or rather, that he was not intended for it. Something
higher and better he could have, but not this. On coming to Vienna, and
while living with Prince Lichnowsky, he made so much of a concession to
public opinion as to buy a court suit, and he even took dancing
lessons, but he never learned dancing, never even learned how to wear
the court suit properly, and soon gave up both in disgust. The principle
on which he now conducted his life was to give his genius full play, to
obey its every mandate, to allow no obstacle to come in the way of its
fullest development. That this idea controlled him throughout life, is
apparent in many ways, but most of all in his journal. "Make once more
the sacrifice of all the petty necessities of life for the glory of thy
art. God before all," he wrote in 1818, when beginning the Mass in D.
All sorts of circumstances and influences were required to isolate him
from the world to enable him the better to do his appointed work.
Probably no other musician ever made so complete a surrender of all
impedimenta for the sake of his art as did Beethoven.

Music as an art does not conduce to renunciation, since its outward
expression always partakes more or less of the nature of a festival. The
claims of society come more insistently into the life of the musician
than in that of other art-workers, the painter or literary man, for
instance, whose work is completed in the isolation of his study. The
musician, on the contrary, completes his work on the stage. He must
participate in its rendering. He is, more than any other, beset by
social obligations; he perforce becomes to a certain extent gregarious,
all of which has a tendency to dissipate time and energy. It is only by
a great effort that he can isolate himself; that he can retain his
individuality. Beethoven's reward on these lines was great in proportion
to his victory over himself.

CHAPTER IV

HEROIC SYMPHONY

Ach, der menschliche Intellekt! Ach "Genie"! Es ist nicht so gar
viel einen "Faust" ein