Dear Cyndy,

Thank you very much for your letter. Its questions about
Katneuses ruminations arrived just at the right moment,
after I had just awoken to the thought that under the rubric
of esthetics Katenus did in fact have much to pontificate
concerning music, architecture, the graphic arts, literature,
language, and in a recursive mode about "philosophy". Imagine:
the philosophy of philosophy, the metaphysics of metaphysics
as the inception of a chain reaction with no end in sight.

The URL for which you asked is:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ej1meyer/freunde/e052.html
This is the English version of Chapter 52. Last evening when
I stopped writing, I was busy upgrading the original with the
"improvements" that had attached themselves to the English
text. I'm going down for some breakfast now. When I return 
I'll want to start stuffing this letter to you with some of
the thoughts that criss-crossed my mind as I awoke. I hope
they won't all have been washed away by the coffee.

Afterwards: The photo of Nathaniel on Mount Moosilauke
was taken by Klemens. Yesterday at 5:30 a.m. the two of them
set out in the red car, drove the 125 miles or so to Glencliff,
then hiked 5 miles up the old carriage road to the summit.
I felt bad - as I always do - to have been left behind. I felt
worse because my arthritic right hip would never have made it.
If it weren't for Margaret, I'd set out early some morning
nonetheless, I would come a cropper, and when they found what
was left of me frozen by the side of the trail, I would finally
have become famous, for perhaps 24 hours. But then, there's no
fame that lasts forever.

As I was having my coffee, I thoughts about your comments on
Nathaniel and the 9th, about my suggestion to have an organist
substitute for vocalists and chorus. Beethoven's own literary
contribution (as distinct from Schiller's)  "O Freunde, nicht
diese Toene, sondern lasset und angenehmere anstimmen, und
freudenvollere." struck me as an ironic comment on his own
compositions, for, obviously, "die Toene" are the sounds of
the 1st, 2nd and 3rd movements that the audience has just heard,
now to be repudiated for what comes next: that hectic, impassioned,
desperate shout for joy - which obviously isn't there. A musical
triumph, but a spiritual cropper. It's not a matter of becoming
but of being. It is wonderful to be happy, to be joyful. But to
my ears, there's always a note of sadness in the proclamation:
"I'm so happy!" Better leave it unsaid. Happiness is too fragile
for trumpets and drums.

The macabre landscape of Beethoven spirit is no place for
Schiller's gentrified drinking song. It can't work, and it
doesn't. 
.