"'Undoubtedly,' answered Theodore, 'and for a quantity of good melodies into the bargain; but that is exactly the reason why I never should have seen them again. No doubt every composer can remember some particular occasion when some powerful impression was made on him, which time never effaces. The spirit which dwells in music spoke, and the spirit _en rapport_ with it within the composer awoke at that creative fiat; it flamed up with might, and could never be extinguished again. It is certain that all the melodies which we produce under an impulse of this sort seem to belong only to the singer who cast the first spark into us. We hear her, and merely write down what she has sung; but it is the lot of us feeble earthly creatures, clamped to the dust as we are, to long and strive to bring down whatever we can of the super-earthly into the wretched little bit of earthly life in which we are cribbed up. And thus the singer becomes our beloved--perhaps our wife! The spell is broken; our inward melody, with its message, or gospel of glory, turns to a squabble about a broken soup-plate, or a row about an ink-mark on one's new shirt. That composer is a happy man who never again, in this earthly life, sees Her who, with mystic power, kindled the music within him. He may rage, and mourn, poor boy! when his beautiful enchantress has left him; but she has been transformed to everlasting Music, glorious and divine, which lives on in eternal beauty and youth; and out of it are born the melodies which are Her only, and Her again and again. What is she but his highest ideal, reflected from him on to herself? "'"Curious, but pretty plausible," said Edward, as the friends, arm-in-arm, walked out of the Sala Tarone into the street.'" It was admitted that, if Theodore's story might not satisfy all the necessary conditions, it came near enough to be passed as "Serapiontic." Ottmar said, "Your story, dear Theodore, has this effect, that it brings vividly to mind all your devoted labours at music. Each of us wished to draw you into a different province of it. While Lothair thought your instrumental writings your best, I thought your _forte_ was comic opera. Cyprian wanted you to do 'things unattempted yet,' by putting music to (what he will now admit were) poems completely beyond all recognised forms and rules; and you yourself cared only for the serious ecclesiastical style. Well, as things stand at present, the _opera tragica_ may probably be considered, the highest goal at which a composer can aim, and I can't understand why you haven't set to work at one long ago; you would surely have turned out something very superior in that line." "And whose fault is it that I have not?" said Theodore, "but your own, and Cyprian's, and Lothair's? Could I ever succeed in inducing either of you to write me a libretto, with all my entreaties?"