awe. Any one who had been watching me at that moment could hardly
have failed to see the state I was in, and this in spite of the
fact that I was such a bad performer on the piano.

Another work also exercised a great fascination over me, namely,
the overture to Fidelio in E major, the introduction to which
affected me deeply. I asked my sisters about Beethoven, and
learned that the news of his death had just arrived. Obsessed as
I still was by the terrible grief caused by Weber's death, this
fresh loss, due to the decease of this great master of melody,
who had only just entered my life, filled me with strange
anguish, a feeling nearly akin to my childish dread of the
ghostly fifths on the violin. It was now Beethoven's music that I
longed to know more thoroughly; I came to Leipzig, and found his
music to Egmont on the piano at my sister Louisa's. After that I
tried to get hold of his sonatas. At last, at a concert at the
Gewandthaus, I heard one of the master's symphonies for the first
time; it was the Symphony in A major. The effect on me was
indescribable. To this must be added the impression produced on
me by Beethoven's features, which I saw in the lithographs that
were circulated everywhere at that time, and by the fact that he
was deaf, and lived a quiet secluded life. I soon conceived an
image of him in my mind as a sublime and unique supernatural
being, with whom none could compare. This image was associated in
my brain with that of Shakespeare; in ecstatic dreams I met both
of them, saw and spoke to them, and on awakening found myself
bathed in tears.

It was at this time that I came across Mozart's Requiem, which
formed the starting-point of my enthusiastic absorption in the