In the Fantasia there speaks the voice of a spirit which has attained all
that humanity may attain: of wisdom, of power, of pride and glory. And
now it is like the roll of an army marching slowly through terrific
defiles; and now it is like the quiet song of royal wanderers meditating
in vast garden landscapes, with mossy masonry and long pools and
cypresses, and a sapphire star shining in the purple sky on the shoulder
of a cypress; and now it is like the cry of a lost traveller, who,
plunging heavily through a virgin forest, comes suddenly upon a green
circular sward, smooth as a carpet, with an antique statue of a beautiful
nude girl in the midst; and now it is like the oratory of richly-gowned
philosophers awaiting death in gorgeous and gloomy palaces; and now it is
like the upward rush of winged things that are determined to achieve,
knowing well the while that the ecstasy of longing is better than the
assuaging of desire. And though the voice of this spirit speaking in the
music disguises itself so variously, it is always the same. For it
cannot, and it would not, hide the strange and rare timbre which
distinguishes it from all others--that quality which springs from a pure
and calm vision, of life. The voice of this spirit says that it has lost
every illusion about life, and that life seems only the more beautiful.
It says that activity is but another form of contemplation, pain but
another form of pleasure, power but another form of weakness, hate but
another form of love, and that it is well these things should be so. It
says there is no end, only a means; and that the highest joy is to
suffer, and the supreme wisdom is to exist. If you will but live, it
cries, that grave but yet passionate voice--if you will but live! Were
there a heaven, and you reached it, you could do no more than live. The
true heaven is here where you live, where you strive and lose, and weep
and laugh. And the true hell is here, where you forget to live, and blind
your eyes to the omnipresent and terrible beauty of existence....