operate on others in the same manner.

* * * * *

If Heaven has bestowed on you a fine imagination, you will often be
seated at your piano in solitary hours, as if attached to it; you will
desire to express the feelings of your heart in harmony, and the more
clouded the sphere of harmony may perhaps be to you, the more
mysteriously you will feel as if drawn into magic circles. In youth
these may be your happiest hours. Beware, however, of abandoning
yourself too often to the influence of a talent that induces you to
lavish powers and time, as it were, upon phantoms. Mastery over the
forms of composition and a clear expression of your ideas can only be
attained by constant writing. Write, therefore, more than you improvise.

* * * * *

Acquire an early knowledge of the art of conducting music. Observe often
the best conductors, and conduct along with them in your mind. This will
give you clearness of perception and make you accurate.

* * * * *

Look deeply into life, and study it as diligently as the other arts and
sciences.

* * * * *

The laws of morals are those of art.

* * * * *

By means of industry and perseverance you will rise higher and higher.

* * * * *

From a pound of iron, that costs little, a thousand watch-springs can be
made, whose value becomes prodigious. The pound you have received from
the Lord,--use it faithfully.

* * * * *

Without enthusiasm nothing great can be effected in art.

* * * * *

The object of art is not to produce riches. Become a great artist, and
all other desirable accessories will fall to your lot.

* * * * *

The Spirit will not become clear to you, before you understand the Forms
of composition.

* * * * *

Perhaps genius alone understands genius fully.

* * * * *

It has been thought that a perfect musician must be able to see, in his
mind's eye, any new, and even complicated, piece of orchestral music as
if in full score lying before him! This is indeed the greatest triumph
of musical