The new
responsibility, assumed with scarcely a thought as to consequences, not
only interfered with the bachelor habits of a lifetime, but the mental
disturbance occasioned by the lawsuits which ensued, seriously
interrupted his work, so that for some years very little was
accomplished in the way of new compositions. "The higher a man is,"
said Goethe (Conversations with Eckermann), "the more he is under the
influence of daemons, and he must take heed lest his guiding will counsel
him to a wrong path." Could he have foreseen how this adoption of the
child would interfere with his cherished work, he might have paused to
consider the matter, before binding himself irrevocably by his promise
to his brother.
With never a fixed habitation, no sense of the value of money, giving it
away to those in need as readily as if it had no value, often enduring
privation himself in consequence; with a mode of life so simple that the
entire menage was frequently transported elsewhere on slight
provocation, this ascetic was now to encounter housekeeping problems,
make money, save it (most difficult of all), employ servants, in short
undertake in middle-age and in impaired health, duties the nature of
which he could not even form an estimate.
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