The unversed person believes that in harmonics he will
find quite definite rules which must not be transgressed. But again and
again he discovers that what is, as a general rule, forbidden, is
nevertheless, under certain circumstances, quite permissible.
Thus he learns that in music there is no rule binding on genius. And
perhaps he asks himself whether, in other domains, there are rules which
are binding on genius.
XX.
I had lived so little with Nature. The Spring of 1865, the first Spring
I had spent in the country--although quite near to Copenhagen--meant to
me rich impressions of nature that I never forgot, a long chain of the
most exquisite Spring memories. I understood as I had never done before
the inborn affection felt by every human being for the virgin, the
fresh, the untouched, the not quite full-blown, just as it is about to
pass over into its maturity. It was in the latter half of May. I was
looking for anemones and violets, which had not yet gone to seed. The
budding beech foliage, the silver poplar with its shining leaves, the
maple with its blossoms, stirred me, filled me with Spring rapture. I
could lie long in the woods with my gaze fastened on a light-green
branch with the sun shining through it, and, as if stirred by the wind,
lighted up from different sides, and floating and flashing as if coated
with silver.
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