I have often been in the state of mind and body so
vividly described by Berlioz, except as regards the numbness of the
extremities and the partial paralysis of the sensory nerves. Hundreds
of times I have enjoyed that harmless aesthetic intoxication which I
believe to be more delicious to the initiated than the sweet delights
of an opium eater--a musical intoxication which does not only fill the
brain with floods of voluptuous delight, but sends thrills down the
spinal column and to the very finger-tips, like so many electric
shocks. As a boy, every experience of this sort fired my imagination
with ambition, and led to all sorts of noble resolutions, some of
which, at any rate, were carried into execution. The deepest
impression ever made on me by any work of art was at Munich, ten years
ago, when I heard for the first time Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde,"
which I was already familiar with through the pianoforte score. The
performance began at six o'clock, and I had had nothing to eat since
noon. It lasted till eleven o'clock, and one might imagine that, after
all this emotional excitement, I must have been ravenously hungry.
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