/lit/ - Literature

>>19512414
>O INDIGENCE! thou care-bringer! protectress divine of the German musician (unless he have reached the haven of director at some court-theatre)! O, carking Indigence! as I ever do, so let me now in this reminiscence from my life first bring dutiful obeisance to thy praise and honor! Let me sing of thee, thou steadfast companion of my life! Always loyal, never hast thou forsaken me! With a strong palm, thou hast warded from me all sudden shocks of propitious luck; and ever against the onerous glances of sunny Fortuna hast thou protected me! With an impenetrable veil hast thou always benignantly hidden from my sight the vain riches of this world! Receive thou all my gratitude for thine indefatigable constancy. But if it may be, pray do thou at length find some other foster-child than me. For indeed I should — if it were only for the sake of curiosity — like to learn from personal experience, what manner of existence I might manage to lead without thee. At the least — so I beseech thee — go thou and plague with most especial cunning our political dreamers, those madmen, who are determined in spite of everything to unite our dear Germany under a single sceptre: For then there would be but one single court-theatre, and hence a place for but one single Kapellmeister! What then would become of all my hopes, my dear ambitions, which even now are dim before my eyes, and, I dread, are slowly fading — even now, when I can count so many German court-theatres. But ah! I see that I grow impious. Forgive, O thou divine protectress, the blasphemous wish which just escaped me. 'Twas but momentary; for thou seest within my heart, and well thou knowest how wholly thine I am, and ever shall be, though it came to pass that there were a thousand court-theatres in German ! Amen!
>I never undertake a thing, without first offering up this daily prayer, and so I breathe it here before I begin the story of my pilgrimage to Beethoven.