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We have an abundance of stone masons, but few Phidiases or Angelos; hundreds of organ grinders, but few Beethovens or Webers or Bachs; a full quota of men engrossed in the cold calculus of business, but a scarcity of Homers or Dantes or Virgils.
And so with others, who do not live by bread alone, but by some cherished and perhaps fantastic pleasure; who are meat salesmen to the external eye, and possibly to themselves are Shakespeares, Napoleons, or Beethovens; who have not one virtue to rub against another in the field of active life, and yet perhaps, in the life of contemplation, sit with the saints.
One morning I was told the Beethovens were going away, and before long I met their two heavy boxes being carried down the stairs. The boxes were so squab and like their owners, that I half thought for a moment that they were inside, and should hardly have been surprised to see them spring up like a couple of Jacks-in-the-box. "Sono indentro?" said I, with a frown of wonder, pointing to the boxes.
The only descendants of the Beethovens known to be living in 1891, are Karoline Weidinger, a widow, Gabrielle Heimler, and the son and daughter of Marie Weidinger. All these persons were at last accounts living in Vienna. A good painter should paint two things; man, and the thoughts of man's soul. Beethoven usually had a definite idea before him when composing.
One heard the names of Chaminade, Augusta Holmes, Ethel Smyth. Why had there been no female Beethovens, Liszts, or even Chopins? The reason, asserted a middle-aged man, was that women's emotions were too thoroughly instinctive to be projected in the form of first-class music, which was, in fine, emotion analyzed, compressed within the limits of fixed rules, expressed by series of arbitrary signs.
The hypothesis of heredity, sometimes brought forward to account for his deafness, would have more weight had the lesion shown itself in the case of either of his other brothers. As it is, there is no hint to be found of even a tendency to deafness in any other of the Beethovens, whether Johann, Karl, or the nephew.
There are the Galileos, Brunos, Homers, Michael Angelos, Beethovens, and all the lesser learned men and artists, who have consecrated their entire lives to the service of science and art, and who were, and will remain, the benefactors of mankind."
One morning I was told the Beethovens were going away, and before long I met their two heavy boxes being carried down the stairs. The boxes were so squab and like their owners, that I half thought for a moment that they were inside, and should hardly have been surprised to see them spring up like a couple of Jacks-in-the- box. "Sono indentro?" said I, with a frown of wonder, pointing to the boxes.
One has only to look for female Shakespeares, Newtons, Bismarcks, Raphaels, and Beethovens, to verify the fact beyond dispute. But we are dealing here with existing circumstances, not with potentialities.
Human equality is not lack of difference, nor do the infinite human differences argue relative superiority and inferiority. And, again, how new an aspect human differences may assume when all men are educated. Today we think of apes, semi-apes, and human beings; tomorrow we may think of Keir Hardies, Roosevelts, and Beethovens not equals but men.
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