concentrated the utmost promised to us by the most imaginative of our
poets, in bright visions of happiness and freedom. Even the only great hero
of action, who in those memorable days is worthy to stand beside the great
master of harmony, having diffused among mankind new and priceless earthly
treasures, sinks in the scale when we compare these with the celestial
treasures of a purified and deeper feeling, and a more free, enlarged, and
sublime view of the world, struggling gradually and distinctly upwards out
of the mere frivolity of an art devoid of words to express itself, and
impressing its stamp on the spirit of the age. They convey, too, the
knowledge of this brightest victory of genuine German intellect to those
for whom the sweet Muse of Music is as a book with seven seals, and reveal,
likewise, a more profound sense of Beethoven's being to many who already,
through the sweet tones they have imbibed, enjoy some dawning conviction of
the master's grandeur, and who now more and more eagerly lend a listening
ear to the intellectual clearly worded strains so skilfully interwoven,
thus soon to arrive at the full and blissful comprehension of those grand
outpourings of the spirit, and finally to add another bright delight to the
enjoyment of those who already know and love Beethoven. All these may be
regarded as the objects I had in view when I undertook to edit his Letters,
which have also bestowed on myself the best recompense of my labors, in the
humble conviction that by this means I may have vividly reawakened in the
remembrance of many the mighty mission which our age is called on to
perform for the development of our race, even in the realm of
harmony,--more especially in our Father-land.

LUDWIG NOHL.

LA TOUR DE PERLZ--LAKE OF GENEVA,
March, 1865.