CHAPTER XIX

LIFE’S PURPORT

Das Grenzenlose braust um mich.  Weit hinaus glaenzt mir Raum und
Zeit.  Wohlan!  Wohlauf! altes Herz. 
—­FRIEDERICH NIETZSCHE.

Beethoven’s life in its devotion to the attainment of a single end, the perfection of his art, affords an object lesson, which cannot fail to encourage and stimulate every one engaged in creative work of any kind.  His earnestness and industry is the key-note to his achievement.  He worked harder than any composer we have any record of, with the possible exception of Wagner.  If we consider how the compositions improved in his hands, while being worked over, as is shown by the sketch-books, a simple process of reasoning will convince the reader that any man’s work, in any line, can be improved by adopting the same methods.  Beethoven’s own words in this connection are, “the boundary does not yet exist, of which it can be said to talent cooperating with industry, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.’” The more he worked over his compositions the better they became.  When he required a theme for a particular purpose, if the right thought did not at once come to mind, his practice was to write as near it as possible.  By the time this was done an improvement would suggest itself.  He would then write it again, and before the ink was dry, would start at it yet again, each effort bringing him nearer the goal, and this progress was the incentive that led him to continue until the idea he was reaching for became a reality.  His intuitive faculties were highly developed, and he had Goethe’s “heavenly gift” of imagination, but this would have been as nothing without his power of concentration.  All his abilities were focused on his art.  He made everything else subservient to the one idea of attaining perfection in it.  He succeeded too, by giving his genius free play, by allowing his individuality to shape itself in accordance with its own laws.  The circumstances of his life favored this action.  Responsible to no one for years before reaching maturity, he was nowhere hampered or repressed as might have been the case had he had a home life.  Strong characters are best left alone to work out their own development.  It is only the weak ones that have to be supported.  He met every demand that his art made on him.  It was only by a complete surrender, by a concentration of all his forces into one channel, that he attained his results.  By losing the world, he gained it.  The great ones in every age, in every art or calling,—­those who attained to saintship,—­seers,—­prophets,—­all went this road.

He had absolute confidence in his judgment.  He seldom considered what his audience would like.  The best that was in him was what he gave to the world.  He knew its value, and if others could not understand it, he knew the time would come when it would be appreciated.  In art as in religion, faith is a necessary preliminary to all great achievements.