Surely it is unfair to lay
the sins of these vagabonds on the shoulders of music.
Finally, as regards the moral character and temper of composers, it
should be remembered that, if some of them occasionally gave way to
their angry passion, they were generally provoked to it by the
obtuseness and insulting arrogance of their contemporaries. Had these
contemporaries honored and commended them for enlarging the boundaries
of art and the sphere of human pleasures, instead of tormenting them
with cruel and ignorant criticisms, the great composers would, no
doubt, have been amiable in their public relations, as they appear to
have been almost invariably toward their friends. Wagner's pugnacity
and frequent ill-temper, for instance, arose simply from the fact
that, while he was toiling night and day to compose immortal
master-works, his contemporaries not only refused to contribute enough
for his daily bread, but assailed him on all sides with malicious
lying, stupid criticisms, with as much obvious enjoyment of this
flaying alive of a genius as if they were a band of Indians torturing
a prisoner of war.
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