His letters at this
time to his friend Dr. Wegeler, at Bonn, and to others, are full of
misgivings.
But not alone is this unhappy frame of mind to be attributed to
approaching deafness or any mere physical ailment. The psychological
element also enters into the account and largely dominates it. The
extraordinary character of the First and Second Symphonies seem to have
had a powerful effect on his trend of thought making him introspective
and morbidly conscientious. In a mind constituted as was his, it is
quite within bounds to assume that the revelation of his genius was
largely the cause of the morbid self-consciousness which appears in his
letters of the period, and in the "Will." He recognized to the full how
greatly superior this work was to anything of the kind that had yet
appeared; singularly the knowledge made him humble. What he had
accomplished thus far was only an earnest of the great work he was
capable of, but to achieve it meant a surrender of nearly all the ties
that bound him to life. The human qualities in him rebelled at the
prospect.
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