Actually they are always and of necessity epigoni. We long to be beautiful, we fancy it must bring much happiness with it. But that is a mistake. It takes over many feelings and moods engendered by religion, lays them to its heart, and itself becomes deeper, more full of soul, so that it is capable of transmitting exultation and enthusiasm, which it previously was not able to do. Everywhere where human endeavour wears a loftier, gloomier aspect, it may be assumed that the fear of spirits, incense, and church-shadows have remained attached to it.
Art makes the aspect of life endurable by throwing over it the veil of obscure thought.
In such moments his intellectual character is put to the test. They do not deceive themselves, but they intentionally weave lies round life. Probably this occasionally drove the neighbouring nations to desperation. In reality the imagination of the good artist or thinker constantly produces good, mediocre, and bad, but his judgment, most clear and practised, rejects and chooses and joins together, just as we now learn from Beethoven's notebooks that he gradually composed the most beautiful melodies, and in a manner selected them, from many different attempts. All great men were great workers, unwearied not only in invention but also in rejection, reviewing, transforming, and arranging.