173

Corriger la fortune.¹⁶ In the lives of great artists, there are unfortunate contingencies which, for example, force the painter to sketch his most significant picture as only a fleeting thought, or which forced Beethoven to leave us only the unsatisfying piano reduction of a symphony in certain great piano sonatas (the great B flat major). ¹⁷ In such cases, the artist coming after should try to correct the great men's lives after the fact; for example, a master of all orchestral effects would do so by restoring to life the symphony that had suffered an apparent pianistic death.

174

Reduction. Some things, events, or people do not tolerate being treated on a small scale. One cannot reduce the Laocoön group to a knick-knack: it needs size.¹⁸ But it is even more uncommon for something small by nature to tolerate magnification; that is why biographers will always have more success in portraying a great man small than a small man great.

175

Sensuality in contemporary art. Artists often miscalculate when they aim at a sensual effect for their works of art; for their viewers or listeners no longer have all their senses about them, and, quite against the artist's intention, arrive by means of his work of art at a "sanctity" of feeling that is closely related to boredom. Perhaps their sensuality begins where the artist's has just ended; at the most, then, they meet at one point.

176

Shakespeare the moralist. Shakespeare reflected a great deal on passions, and by temperament probably had very easy access to many of them (dramatists in general are rather wicked people). But, unlike Montaigne, he was not able to talk about them; rather he laid his observations about passions in the mouths of his passionate characters. Of course, this is unnatural, but it makes his dramas so full of thought that all other dramas seem empty and easily inspire a general aversion.
Schiller's maxims (which are almost always based on false or insignificant ideas) are theatrical maxims, and as such have a powerful effect, while Shakespeare's maxims do honor to his model Montaigne,¹⁹ and contain quite serious thoughts in an elegant form, but are therefore too distant and too fine for the eyes of the theater-going public, and thus ineffective.

177

Making oneself heard. One must know not only how to play well but also how to make oneself heard. A violin in the hand of the greatest master emits only a squeak if the hall is too big; there the master can be confused with any bungler.