Jeg bobler over af fornøjelse over ‘The Beloved Vision’, som rummer de mest betagende passager, jeg har læst i lang, lang tid. Jeg mener, se lige denne perfekte krystallisering på side 71 af higende tysk romantik:

The search in these works for a musical equivalent of Grimms’ fairy tales is almost palpable. Always we are in a dark forest or a magic garden, or on a wild mountain, inhabited by strange creatures and where the laws of nature are mysteriously suspended. The magical, otherworldly element conveys a sense of difference, something specifically German and not French or Italian. The landscapes are those of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich, the gnarled trees and stormy skies and mist-clad mountains and lakes, the dark strangers, always with their backs turned, a dream world where cathedrals rise up in the forest and calvaries grow on mountain-tops. In short, reason is in retreat. Factories and steam power and gaslight, the discoveries of science and the home comforts of the bourgeoisie may be all very well, but for the artist, the exceptional, liberated soul, such things are worse than irrelevant – they block the view to the higher beauty; they inhibit experience; they breed materialism.

Jamen altså, jeg kan slet ikke stå for de her inderlige proto-goth-emoer omkring om år 1800. Den her bog er som at bade i fløde; jeg er vild med det.