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No doubt there were some disadvantages in counterpoise. After the
gay life of Vienna, Eisenstadt must have been dull enough, and
there is plenty of evidence to show that the young artist
occasionally fell into the dumps. In one letter he complains that
he "never can obtain leave, even for four-and-twenty hours, to go
to Vienna." In another he writes: "I am doomed to stay at home.
What I lose by so doing you can well imagine. It is indeed sad
always to be a slave, but Providence wills it so. I am a poor
creature, plagued perpetually by hard work, and with few hours
for recreation." Haydn clearly recognized the necessities of the
artist. A quiet life is all very well, but no man ever yet
greatly touched the hearts of men if he kept himself too strictly
segregated from his kind. Music, like every other art, would
perish in a hot-house. Reckon up to-day the composers who are
really a force in the emotional life of the people, and ask which
of them was reared in the serene, cold air of the academies. A
composer to be great must live with his fellows, and open his
soul to human affluences. "I was cut off from the world," says
Haydn. "There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was
forced to become original." But his originality was that of an
active mind working upon material already stored, and the store
had to be replenished in occasional excursions, all too few, from
the palace.
The Eisenstadt appointment, then, provided for Haydn's material
wants, and gave him opportunities for the peaceful pursuit of his
studies, for experiment and self-criticism. He was treated with
great consideration by the Esterhazys, and, menial or not, he
lived on their bounty and in the friendliest relations with them.
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