I By No Means Say That Present Conditions, Taken As A
Whole, Are More Unfavorable To The Musician Than The
Earlier
conditions, for all this talk in a hundred papers brings also
much good with it, which would not otherwise
Be so easy to
attain; - but simply the thinking and creative artist must not
allow himself to be misled by it, and must go his own gait
quietly and undisturbed, as they say the hippopotamus does, in
spite of all the arrows which rebound from his thick skin. An
original thinker says, "As one emblem and coat of arms I show a
tree violently blown by the storm, which nevertheless shows its
red fruit on all the boughs, with the motto, Dum convellor
mitescunt; or also, Conquassatus sed ferax."
When you have an opportunity I beg you to give my best thanks to
my old friend Lowy for the letter he wrote me directly after the
performance of the "Preludes." I know that he means well towards
me, in his own way, which, unfortunately, cannot be mine,
because, to me, friendship without heart and flame is something
foreign; and I cannot understand, for instance, why at the
concert in question he did not take his customary place, but kept
back in a corner, as he tells me. Pray when have I given him any
occasion to be ashamed of me? Do I not then stand up in the whole
world of Art as an honest fellow, who, faithful to his
conviction, despising all base means and hypocritical stratagems,
strives valiantly and honorably after a high aim?
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