In a small port, the name of which I forget, near Perpignan, 25th
February, 1822.[1]
This evening I have just found out that music, when it is perfect, puts
the heart into the same state as it enjoys in the presence of the loved
one--that is to say, it gives seemingly the keenest happiness existing
on the face of the earth.
If this were so for all men, there would be no more favourable
incentive to love.
But I had already remarked at Naples last year that perfect music, like
perfect pantomime, makes me think of that which is at the moment the
object of my dreams, and that the ideas, which it suggests to me, are
excellent: at Naples, it was on the means of arming the Greeks.
Now this evening I cannot deceive myself--I have the misfortune _of
being too great an admirer of milady L_.[2]
And perhaps the perfect music, which I have had the luck to hear again,
after two or three months of privation, although going nightly to the
Opera, has simply had the effect, which I recognised long ago--I mean
that of producing lively thoughts on what is already in the heart.
March 4th--eight days later.
I dare neither erase nor approve the preceding observation. Certain it
is that, as I wrote it, I read it in my heart. If to-day I bring it
into question, it is
[Pg 54]
because I have lost the memory of what I saw at that time.
The habit of hearing music and dreaming its dreams disposes towards
love. A sad and gentle air, provided it is not too dramatic, so that
the imagination is forced to dwell on the action, is a direct stimulant
to dreams of love and a delight for gentle and unhappy souls: for
example, the drawn-out passage on the clarionet at the beginning of the
quartet in _Bianca and Faliero_(10), and the recitative of La Camporesi
towards the middle of the quartet.
A lover at peace with his mistress enjoys to distraction Rossini's
famous duet in _Armida and Rinaldo_, depicting so justly the little
doubts of happy love and the moments of delight which follow its
reconciliations. It seems to him that the instrumental part, which
comes in the middle of the duet, at the moment when Rinaldo wishes
to fly, and represents in such an amazing way the conflict of the
passions, has a physical influence upon his heart and touches it in
reality. On this subject I dare not say what I feel; I should pass for
a madman among people of the north.
[1] Copied from the diary of Lisio.
[2] [Written thus in English by Stendhal,--Tr.]
[Pg 55]