Search where you will, near or far, in ancient or
modern times, and you will never find a first-rate race or an
enlightened age, in its moments of highest reflection, that ever gave
more than a passing bow to optimism. Even Christianity, starting out as
"glad tidings," has had to take on protective coloration to survive, and
today its chief professors moan and blubber like Johann in Herod's
rain-barrel. The sanctified are few and far between. The vast majority
of us must suffer in hell, just as we suffer on earth. The divine grace,
so omnipotent to save, is withheld from us. Why? There, alas, is your
insoluble mystery, your riddle of the universe!...
This conviction that human life is a seeking without a finding, that its
purpose is impenetrable, that joy and sorrow are alike meaningless, you
will see written largely in the work of most great creative artists. It
is obviously the final message, if any message is genuinely to be found
there, of the nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, or, at any rate,
of the three which show any intellectual content at all.
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