“ Is an honest musician to be tormented with music, as I have been to-day, and am so often tormented? ”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion (1839). copy citation
| Author | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
|---|---|
| Source | Hyperion |
| Topic | music torment |
| Date | 1839 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5436/5436-h/5436-h.htm |
Context
“The notes became alive, and glimmered and hopped all round about me,--an electric firestreamed through the tips of my fingers into the keys,--the spirit, from which it gushed forth, spread his broad wings over my soul, the whole room was filled with a thick mist, in which the candles burned dim,--and through which peered forth now a nose, and anon a pair of eyes, and then suddenly vanished away again. And thus it came to pass, that I was left alone with my Sebastian Bach, by Gottlieb attended, as by a familiar spirit. (Your good health, Sir.)
"Is an honest musician to be tormented with music, as I have been to-day, and am so often tormented? Verily, no art is so damnably abused, as this same glorious, holy Musica, who, in her delicate being, is so easily desecrated. Have you real talent,--real feeling for art? Then study music;--do something worthy of the art,--and dedicate your whole soul to the beloved saint.”
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