yieldingness, while striving to master the base thoughts and conduct of
these men, though never entirely succeeding in doing so, is often more a
diverting than an offensive spectacle. In my opinion, nevertheless, even
this less pleasing aspect of the Letters ought not to be in the slightest
degree softened (which it has hitherto been, owing to false views of
propriety and morality), for it is no moral deformity here displayed.
Indeed, even when the irritable master has recourse to expressions
repugnant to our sense of conventionality, and which may well be called
harsh and rough, still the wrath that seizes on our hero is a just and
righteous wrath, and we disregard it, just as in Nature, whose grandeur
constantly elevates us above the inevitable stains of an earthly soil. The
coarseness and ill-breeding, which would claim toleration because this
great man now and then showed such feelings, must beware of doing so, being
certain to make shipwreck when coming in contact with the massive rock of
true morality on which, with all his faults and deficiencies, Beethoven's
being was surely grounded. Often, indeed, when absorbed in the
unsophisticated and genuine utterances of this great man, it seems as if
these peculiarities and strange asperities were the results of some
mysterious law of Nature, so that we are inclined to adopt the paradox by
which a wit once described the singular groundwork of our nature,--"The
faults of man are the night in which he rests from his virtues."

Indeed, I think that the lofty morality of such natures is not fully
evident until we are obliged to confess with regret, that even the great
ones of the earth must pay their tribute to humanity, and really do pay it
(which is the distinction between them and base and petty characters),
without being ever entirely hurled from their pedestal of dignity and
virtue. The soul of that man cannot fail to be elevated, who can seize the
real spirit of the scattered pages that a happy chance has preserved for
us. If not fettered by petty feelings, he will quickly surmount the casual
obstacles and stumbling-blocks which the first perusal of these Letters may
seem to present, and quickly feel himself transported at a single stride
into a stream, where a strange roaring and rushing is heard, but above
which loftier tones resound with magic and exciting power. For a peculiar
life breathes in these lines; an under-current runs through their
apparently unconnected