CAUTION.—In Germany, he who lacks thorough knowledge should beware of writing. The good German does not say in that case “he is ignorant,” but “he is of doubtful character.”—This hasty conclusion, by the way, does great credit to the Germans. 147. PAINTED SKELETONS.—Painted skeletons are those authors who try to make up for their want of flesh by artistic colourings. 148. THE GRAND STYLE AND SOMETHING BETTER.—It is easier to learn how to write the grand style than how to write easily and simply. The reasons for this are inextricably bound up with morality. 149. SEBASTIAN BACH.—In so far as we do not hear Bach’s music as perfect and experienced connoisseurs of counterpoint and all the varieties of the fugal style (and accordingly must dispense with real artistic enjoyment), we shall feel in listening to his music—in Goethe’s magnificent phrase—as if “we were present at God’s creation of the world.” In other words, we feel here that something great is in the making but not yet made—our mighty modern music, which by conquering nationalities, the Church, and counterpoint has conquered the world. In Bach there is still too much crude Christianity, crude Germanism, crude scholasticism. He stands on the threshold of modern European music, but turns from thence to look at the Middle Ages. 150. HÄNDEL.—Händel, who in the invention of his music was bold, original, truthful, powerful, inclined to and akin to all the heroism of which a _nation_ is capable, often proved stiff, cold, nay even weary of himself in composition. He applied a few well-tried methods of execution, wrote copiously and quickly, and was glad when he had finished—but that joy was not the joy of God and other creators in the eventide of their working day. 151. HAYDN.—So far as genius can exist in a man who is merely _good_, Haydn had genius. He went just as far as the limit which morality sets to intellect, and only wrote music that has “no past.” 152. BEETHOVEN AND MOZART.—Beethoven’s music often appears like a deeply emotional meditation on unexpectedly hearing once more a piece long thought to be forgotten, “Tonal Innocence”: it is music about music. In the song of the beggar and child in the street, in the monotonous airs of vagrant Italians, in the dance of the village inn or in carnival nights he discovers his melodies. He stores them together like a bee, snatching here and there some notes or a short phrase. To him these are hallowed memories of “the better world,” like the ideas of Plato.—Mozart stands in quite a different relation to his melodies. He finds his inspiration not in hearing music but in gazing at life, at the most stirring life of southern lands. He was always dreaming of Italy, when he was not there. 153. RECITATIVE.—Formerly recitative was dry, but now we live in the age of moist recitative. It has fallen into the water, and the waves carry it whithersoever they list. 154.