“If I begin this bit, I shall have to write the whole symphony.  It will be a big thing, and I shall have to spend three or four months over it.  That means I shall write no more articles and earn no money.  And when the symphony is finished I shall not be able to resist the temptation of having it copied (which will mean an expense of a thousand or twelve hundred francs), and then of having it played.  I shall give a concert, and the receipts will barely cover half the cost.  I shall lose what I have not got; the poor invalid will lack necessities; and I shall be able to pay neither my personal expenses nor my son’s fees when he goes on board ship....  These thoughts made me shudder, and I threw down my pen, saying, ‘Bah! to-morrow I shall have forgotten the symphony.’  The next night I heard the allegro clearly, and seemed to see it written down.  I was filled with feverish agitation; I sang the theme; I was going to get up ... but the reflections of the day before restrained me; I steeled myself against the temptation, and clung to the thought of forgetting it.  At last I went to sleep; and the next day, on waking, all remembrance of it had, indeed, gone for ever."[23]

That page makes one shudder.  Suicide is less distressing.  Neither Beethoven nor Wagner suffered such tortures.  What would Wagner have done on a like occasion?  He would have written the symphony without doubt—­and he would have been right.  But poor Berlioz, who was weak enough to sacrifice his duty to love, was, alas! also heroic enough to sacrifice his genius to duty.[24]

[Footnote 23:  Memoires, II, 349.]

[Footnote 24:  Berlioz has already touchingly replied to any reproaches that might be made in the words that follow the story I have quoted.  “‘Coward!’ some young enthusiast will say, ’you ought to have written it; you should have been bold.’  Ah, young man, you who call me coward did not have to look upon what I did; had you done so you, too, would have had no choice.  My wife was there, half dead, only able to moan; she had to have three nurses, and a doctor every day to visit her; and I was sure of the disastrous result of any musical adventure.  No, I was not a coward; I know I was only human.  I like to believe that I honoured art in proving that she had left me enough reason to distinguish between courage and cruelty” (Memoires, II, 350).]

And in spite of all this material misery and the sorrow of being misunderstood, people speak of the glory he enjoyed.  What did his compeers think of him—­at least, those who called themselves such?  He knew that Mendelssohn, whom he loved and esteemed, and who styled himself his “good friend,” despised him and did not recognise his genius.[25] The large-hearted Schumann, who was, with the exception of Liszt,[26] the only person who intuitively felt his greatness, admitted that he used sometimes to wonder if he ought to be looked upon as “a genius or a musical adventurer."[27]