Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/259

Rh to be content with little; in Richard Wagner with an abrupt and aggressive restlessness, making the most patient listener well nigh lose his temper: but at this point he returns to the concentration of his genius, and so do they. By means of their foibles, these musicians have created within us an arlent craving for their virtnes—and for a palate ten times more sensitive to every accent of intellect, beauty and goodness in music. —By your irrationality you have done a grievous harm to your neighbor and have irretrievably destroyed a happiness—and then you get the better of your vanity and go to him, humbling yourself before him, exposing your irrationality to his contempt, and think that after this difficult, extremely painful scene everything is righted—that your spontaneous loss of honour atones for the compulsory loss of the other's happiness : with this conviction you depart relieved and re-established in your virtue. But the other suffers as intensely as before; he does not derive any comfort from your irrationality and confession; he remembers the painful sight, which you have accorded him, when you were disparaging yourself in his presence, as a fresh wound inflicted by you—but the thought of revenge is far from his mind and he does not understand how anything could be righted between you and him. You have, in truth, been acting