intellectual atmosphere which, on a first hearing of his larger works, sometimes seems to amount to austerity, and to repel rather than attract. His love-songs--those of them which are not folk-songs--are for the most part dreamings of an ideal, and not the ideal of a man who could lay his heart bare on the theatre boards. Not wholly fanciful is the association in which Brahms, in a letter to Widmann, jokingly placed his two life renunciations, of the composition of an opera and of marriage. The extracts from favourite authors entered by Johannes during the early fifties in the little manuscript books described by Kalbeck, the passages found in 'The young Kreisler's treasure-chest, March, 1854,' remain significant not only of the young musician of twenty, but also of the master of forty, fifty, sixty years, and the quotation from Friedrich v. Sallet might probably stand as the true history of Brahms' inner life. 'One generally finds the highest degree of what is called _openness_ in the most frivolous and thoughtless persons; of that which is called _reserve_, in the deepest, richest and truest minds. And, indeed, I am glad to be communicative, and like a full, free flow of conversation during the clinking of cups; whatever noble thought may have occurred to me should not have been gained for myself, but, if possible, for the world. Nevertheless, there is in the mind a holy of holies. I would not bring that forth which shines brightly there, hidden away in the inmost recess, to glimmer vainly and childishly in the universal light of day. Let it remain there in sacred night. I dare not even tell it in barren words to my friend, however noble, not even to my beloved (if I had one). To what purpose? I might use one single misleading expression, the other might misunderstand one single expression, and my divine image, reflected from a concave mirror, become a distortion, common or trivial, or even deformed and ridiculous.... To analyze and describe the sacred within us is a shameless desecration. If the other has a spiritual eye that is worthy to perceive, he may quietly await one of those blissful moments when the curtain of mists breaks and a swift, comprehensive glance into the sanctuary of the temple is allowed to the worthy one, and in such moments is celebrated the high festival of friendship as of love. For myself, I dare reveal nothing of it in words save in poetry. There I may do so, for it happens in some divine way that is incomprehensible to me....'[59]