True to romantic traditions, Berlioz evolved the _Fantastique_ out of his own joys and sorrows. It originated in the frenzy of his love for the actress, Henriette Smithson. He writes in February, 1830:[99] ‘Again, without warning and without reason, my ill-starred passion wakes. She is in London, yet I feel her presence ever with me. I listen to the beating of my heart, it is like a sledge-hammer, every nerve in my body quivers with pain. ‘Woe upon her! Could she but dream of the poetry, the infinite bliss of such love as mine, she would fly to my arms, even though my embrace should be her death. ‘I was just going to begin my great symphony (Episode in an Artist’s Life) to depict the course of this infernal love of mine--but I can write nothing.’ Why, this is very midsummer madness! you say. But the kind of madness from which came much good romantic music. For the work had been planned in the previous year, not long after Miss Smithson had rejected Berlioz’s first advances. But the composer very soon found that he could write--and he wrote like a fiend. In May he tells a friend that the rehearsals of the symphony will begin in three days. The concert is to take place on the 30th. As for Miss Smithson, ‘I pity and despise her. She is nothing but a commonplace woman with an instinct for expressing the tortures of the soul that she has never felt.’ Yet he wished that ‘the theatre people would somehow plot to get _her_ there--that wretched woman! She could not but recognize herself.’ The performance of the symphony finally came off toward the end of the year. But in the meantime a new goddess had descended from the skies. The composer’s marriage was to depend on the success of the concert--so he says. ‘It must be a _theatrical_ success; Camille’s parents insist upon that as a condition of our marriage. I hope I shall succeed. ‘P. S. That wretched Smithson girl is still here. I have not seen her.’ And a few weeks later: ‘I had a frantic success. They actually encored the _Marche au Supplice_. I am mad! mad! My marriage is fixed for Easter, 1832. My blessed symphony has done the deed.’ But not quite. He was rewriting this same symphony a few months later in Italy when there came a letter from Camille’s mother announcing her engagement to M. Pleyel! As explanation to the symphony the composer wrote an extended ‘program’--in the strictest modern sense. He notes, however, that the program may be dispensed with, as ‘the symphony (the author hopes) offers sufficient musical interest in itself, independent of any dramatic intention.’ The program of the _Fantastique_ is worth quoting entire, since it stands as the prototype and model of all musical programs since: