The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I.

book came to my hands, in which the greatest master of song on earth

had expounded, with the profoundest science, the principles of the art, adding one or two compositions of his own. The more I read and studied in this book, the clearer it became to me what a wretched affair it is when the singer cannot go beyond expressing in words merely that which he fancies he feels in his hear...