healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men like the
Wilcoxes, or President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven
knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might
return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life
might boil over--and waste to steam and froth. In its
dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a
goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the
universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and
emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.

Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built
the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time,
and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the
gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence
of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a
superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its
conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could
return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can
trust Beethoven when he says other things.

Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She
desired to be alone. The music summed up to her all that
had happened or could happen in her career. She read it as
a tangible statement, which could never be superseded. The
notes meant this and that to her, and they could have no
other meaning, and life could have no other meaning. She
pushed right out of the building, and walked slowly down the
outside staircase, breathing the autumnal air, and then she
strolled home.