and this family feeling was ready to respond to the suggestions
of a sympathetic leader. But just as, for instance, the Jews
formerly kept aloof from our handicraftsmen, so the new species
of conductors did not grow up among the musical guilds--they
would have shrunk from the hard work there. They simply took the
lead of the guilds--much as the bankers take the lead in our
industrial society. To be able to do this creditably conductors
had to show themselves possessed of something that was lacking to
the musicians from the ranks--something at least very difficult
to acquire in a sufficient degree, if it was not altogether
lacking: namely, a certain varnish of culture (Gebildetheit). As
a banker is equipped with capital, so our elegant conductors are
the possessors of pseudo-culture. I say pseudo-culture, not
CULTURE, for whoever really possesses the latter is a superior
person and above ridicule. But there can be no harm in discussing
our varnished and elegant friends.

I have not met with a case in which the results of true culture,
an open mind and a free spirit, have become apparent amongst
them. Even Mendelssohn, whose manifold gifts had been cultivated
most assiduously, never got over a certain anxious timidity; and
in spite of all his well-merited successes, he remained outside
the pale of German art-life. It seems probable that a feeling of
isolation and constraint was a source of much pain to him, and
shortened his life. The reason for this is to be found in the
fact that the motives of a desire for culture, such as his, lack
spontaneity--(dass dem Motive eines solchen Bildungsdranges keine
Unbefangenheit innewohnt)--and arise from a desire to cover and
conceal some part of a man's individuality, rather than to
develop it freely.