was written." Yet, after dismissing the twain in this
friendly manner, I should have an uneasy feeling that there was some
good reason for their lack of enthusiasm for Schubert. The very fact
of there being such wide disagreement about the value of music that is
now so familiar to us all, points to some weakness in it which some of
us feel less than others; and I, poor unhappy mortal, who in my
unexcited moments neither place Schubert among the highest gods, like
Liszt and Sir George Grove, nor damn him cordially, like Wagner and
Mr. Shaw, cannot help perceiving that along with much that is
magnificently strong, distinguished, and beautiful in his music, there
is much that is pitiably weak, and worse than commonplace. The music
is like the man--the oddest combination of greatness and smallness
that the world has seen. Like Wagner and Beethoven, Schubert was
strong enough to refuse to earn an honest living; yet he yielded
miserably to publishers when discussing the number of halfpence he
should receive for a dozen songs. He had energy enough to go on
writing operas, but apparently not intelligence to see that his
librettos were worth setting, or to ensure that anything should come
of them when they were set. He thought, rightly or wrongly, that he
needed more counterpoint, yet continued to compose symphonies and
masses without it, vaguely intending to the very end to take lessons
from a sound teacher. He had spirit enough to fall in love (so far as
stories may be relied on), but not to make the lady promise to marry
him, nor yet resolutely to cure himself of his affliction. He had
courage to face the truth, as he saw it, and he found life bitter, and
not worth enduring; yet he could not renounce it, like Beethoven, nor
end it as others have done. As in actual life, so in his music; having
once started anything, he seemed quite unable to make up his mind to
fetch it to a conclusion. He was like a man who lets himself roll down
a hill because it is easier to keep on rolling than to stop. He
repeats his melodies interminably, and then draws a double bar and
sets down the two fatal dots which mean that all has to be played
again. If the repeat had not been a favourite resort of lazy composers
before his time he would have invented it, not because he was lazy,
but because he wanted to go on and could not afford infinite
music-paper. Hence his music at its worst is the merest drivel ever
set down by a great composer; hence at a