We have seen how in the creation at large progress is effected by the continual multiplication of new forms. It was this advance which Beethoven wished: to become master of new and more beautiful forms, not to abolish form. In a letter of his to Matthisson, as early as 1800 accompanying a copy of _Adelaide_, we may instructively gather what he thought of this matter: "Indeed even now I send you _Adelaide_ with a feeling of timidity. You know yourself what changes the lapse of some years brings forth in an artist who continues to make progress; the greater the advances we make in art the less we are satisfied with our works of an early date." This unstudied declaration becomes full of significance when we remember that this same _Adelaide_ is still held, by the common consent of all musicians, to be the most perfect song-form in music; and it is given to young composers as a type and model from which all other forms are to be developed. We may sum up the whole matter by applying to these persons who desire formlessness, words which were written of those who have been said to desire death:
Whatever crazy Sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.
'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, O life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.
In art, form and chaos are so nearly what life and death are in nature, that we do not greatly change this stanza if we read:
'Tis form whereof our art is scant, O form, not chaos, for which we pant, More form, and fuller, that I want.
I find some deliverances in Epictetus which speak so closely to more than one of the points just discussed that I must quote a sentence or two. "What then", he says--in the chapter "About Freedom" "is that which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master? For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, nor royal power; but something else must be discovered. What then is that which when we write makes us free from hindrance and unimpeded. The knowledge of the art of writing. What then is it (which gives freedom) in playing the lute? The science of playing the lute." If Whitman's doctrine is true, the proper method of acquiring freedom on the lute is to bring lute-music to that point where the loud jangling chord produced by a big hand sweeping at random across the strings is to take the place of the finical tunes and harmonies now held in esteem. "Therefore" continues Epictetus, "in life, also, it is the science of life.... When you wish the body to be sound, is it in your power or not?--It is not. When you wish it to be healthy? Neither is this in my power." (I complain of Whitman's democracy that it has no provision for sick, or small, or puny, or plain-featured, or hump-backed, or any deformed people, and that his democracy is really the worst kind of aristocracy, being an aristocracy of nature's favorites in the matter of muscle.) And so of estate, house, horses, life and death, Epictetus continues; these are not in our power, they cannot make us free. So that, in another chapter, he cries: This is the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the combat, divine is the work: it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness.