The thing that one sees
happening to so many people about one, the extinction of a flame, the
withering of a blossom, the dulling and coarsening of the sensibilities,
the decay of the mental energies, seems to have happened to him, too.
And since it happens in the lives of so many folk, why should it
surprise one to see it happening in the life of an artist, and
deflowering genius and ruining musical art? All the hectic, unreal
activity of the later Strauss, the dissipation of forces, points back to
such a cause. He declares himself in every action the type who can no
longer gather his energies to the performance of an honest piece of
work, who can no longer achieve direct, full, living expression, who can
no longer penetrate the center of a subject, an idea. He is the type of
man unfaithful to himself in some fundamental relation, unfaithful to
himself throughout his deeds. Many people have thought a love of money
the cause of Strauss's decay; that for the sake of gain he has
delivered himself bound hand and foot into the power of his publishers,
and for the sake of gain turned out bad music. No doubt, the love of
money plays an inordinate role in the man's life, and keeps on playing a
greater and greater. But it is probable that Strauss's desire for
incessant gain is a sort of perversion, a mania that has gotten control
over him because his energies are inwardly prevented from taking their
logical course, and creating works of art.
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