Hector Berlioz (1803–1869).

A beautiful letter in which he affirms his calling as a musician despite his parents’ opposition. He begs his sister to write to him explaining ‘the reasons why Mum and Dad are keeping such a strict silence towards me’. In his reply to his father, there is nothing “that was not that of a dutiful and respectful son, since I told my father that if he insisted, despite my objections and the futility of my stay at La Côte, I would sacrifice a whole year’s work and my future for several years to his wishes”. He needs money, and views this stay at Côte-Saint-André with dread, since even Nanci asks him to prove: ‘1. That, whilst being a musician, I do not cease to be a son, a brother and a friend; 2. that the profession of composer is not incompatible with social life; 3. that I am capable of thinking and reasoning; 4. that instinct is not my guide; 5. that I can observe the times, places, customs and propriety; 6. that I am not the enemy of all moral and physical order; 7. that I can combine the qualities of an honest man with those of a composer; 8. that I can earn esteem by striving to inspire admiration. So it follows that if I have all the faults you want me to correct, I am a bad son, a bad brother and a bad friend, a savage, an idiot and a madman, a brute beast, a disruptor of all moral and physical order, a dishonest man, a despicable and vile being, and in a word, a stupid and ferocious animal to be feared in every respect. Consequently, I strongly advise you, should I return to the Côte, to have a kennel built for me in the farmyard, where I shall be kept chained for fear of accidents. See, my sister, to what degree of extravagance and absurdity one is led by such exaltation and prejudice’... Below the address, Nanci Berlioz noted: ‘a monument to madness and the delirium of the passions’. Correspondance générale, vol. I, no. 44.