Such was the tragedy of Michelangelo. His trouble was not a sudden stroke of misfortune in the flower of his days. The affliction was inborn. From the first dawning of his consciousness, the worm of discontent was gnawing at his heart, the worm which grew with his growth throughout the eighty years of his life. All his feeling was tinged with melancholy. Never do we hear from him, as we so often hear from Beethoven, the golden call of joy. But his greatness lay in this, that he bore his sorrows like a cross, a second Christ carrying the burden of his destiny to the Golgotha of his daily work, eternally weary of existence, and yet not weary of activity. Or we may compare him with Sisyphus; but whereas Sisyphus for ever rolled the stone, it was Michelangelo's fate, chiseling in rage and bitterness, to fashion the patient stone into works of art. For Rolland, Michelangelo was the genius of a great and vanished age; he was the Christian, unhappy but patient, whereas Beethoven was the pagan, the great god Pan in the forest of music. Michelangelo shares the blame for his own suffering, the blame that attaches to weakness, the blame of those damned souls in Dante's first circle "who voluntarily gave themselves up to sadness." We must show him compassion as a man, but as we show compassion to one mentally diseased, for he is the paradox of "a heroic genius with an unheroic will." Beethoven is the hero as artist, and still more the hero as man; Michelangelo is only the hero as artist. As man, Michelangelo is the vanquished, unloved because he does not give himself up to love, unsatisfied because he has no longing for joy. He is the saturnine man, born under a gloomy star, one who does not struggle against melancholy, but rather cherishes it, toying with his own depression. "La mia allegrezza è la malincolia"--melancholy is my delight. He frankly acknowledges that "a thousand joys are not worth as much as a single sorrow." From the beginning to the end of his life he seems to be hewing his way, cutting an interminable dark gallery leading towards the light. This way is his greatness, leading us all nearer towards eternity.