I appear at times merry and in good heart, talk, too, before others quite reasonably, and it looks as if I felt, too, God knows how well within my skin. Yet the soul maintains its deathly sleep and the heart bleeds from a thousand wounds.
I once sent him a song and asked him to mark a cross wherever he thought it was faulty. Brahms returned it untouched, saying 'I don't want to make a cemetery of your compositions.'