bounds to assume that the revelation of his genius was largely the cause of the morbid self-consciousness which appears in his letters of the period, and in the “Will.”  He recognized to the full how greatly superior this work was to anything of the kind that had yet appeared; singularly the knowledge made him humble.  What he had accomplished thus far was only an earnest of the great work he was capable of, but to achieve it meant a surrender of nearly all the ties that bound him to life.  The human qualities in him rebelled at the prospect.  With the clairvoyance superinduced by much self-examination, he was able to forecast the vast scope of his powers, and the task that was set him.  The whole future of the unapproachable artist that he was destined to become, was mirrored out to him almost at the beginning of his career, but he saw it only with apprehension and dread.  There were periods when a narrower destiny would have pleased him more.  “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.”  He at times recoiled from the task, and would have preferred death instead.  This was probably the most unhappy period of his life.  He had yet to learn the hardest lesson of all, resignation, renunciation.  That harsh mandate enunciated by Goethe in Faust:  “Entbaeren sollst du, sollst entbaeren,” had been thrust on him with a force not to be gainsaid or evaded.

With such a man but one issue to the conflict was possible:  obedience to the higher law.  In a conversation held with his friend Krumpholz, he expressed doubts as to the value of his work hitherto.  “From now on I shall strike out on a new road,” he said.  He is now dominated by a greater seriousness; his mission has been shown him.  Adieu now to the light-hearted mode of life characteristic of his friends and of the time.  His new road led him into regions where they could not 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