You Assume Alternately The Gait Of The Mole
And Of The Eagle - And Everything You Do Succeeds Wonderfully,
Because Amid Your Subterranean Maneuvers And Your Airy Flights
You Constantly Preserve, As Your Own Inalienable Property, So
Much Wit And Knowledge, Good Sense And Free Fancy.
If you had
asked me to find a motto for your book I should have proposed
this,
"Inciter et initier,"
as best summing up, according to my ideas, the aim that you
fulfill by your twofold talent of distinguished writer and
musician ex professo. It is really curious to observe how the
well-known saying, "It is from the north that light comes to us
today," has been verified lately with regard to musical
literature. After Mr. Oulibicheff had endowed us with a Mozart,
here come you with a Beethoven. Without attempting to compare two
works which are in so many respects as different and separate as
the two heroes chosen by their respective historiographers, it is
nevertheless natural that your name should be frequently
associated with that of Mr. Oulibicheff - for each is an honor to
Art and to his country. This circumstance, however, does not do
away with your right to lecture Mr. Oulibicheff very wittily, and
with a thorough knowledge of the subject, for having made of
Mozart a sort of Dalai-Lama, [The head of the temporal and
spiritual power in Thibet (Translator's note)] beyond which there
is nothing. In all this polemical part (pp. 26, 27, etc.), as in
many other cases, I am entirely of your opinion, with all due
justice to the talents and merits of your compatriot.
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