To appreciate and be able to understand beauty but unable to create it, is surely one of the worst punishments the human intellect may suffer. Peter Shaffer’s fictional character Antonio Salieri incarnates this suffering: absolute envy!

Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase, and the structure would fall. It was clear to me. That sound I had heard in the Archbishop’s palace had been no accident. Here again was the very voice of God! I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink-strokes at an absolute, inimitable beauty.

All I ever wanted was to sing to Him. That’s His doing, isn’t it? He gave me that longing – then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to serve Him with music, why implant the desire, like a lust in my body, then deny me the talent? Go on, tell me! Speak for Him! (“AMADEUS” by Peter Shaffer)

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Featured Image: Old Salieri in the film “Amadeus”