KING MIDAS
A ROMANCE
By Upton Sinclair
I dreamed that Soul might dare the pain, Unlike the prince of old, And wrest from heaven the fiery touch That turns all things to gold.
New York and London
1901
NOTE
In the course of this story, the author has had occasion to refer to Beethoven's Sonata Appassionata as containing a suggestion of the opening theme of the Fifth Symphony. He has often seen this stated, and believed that the statement was generally accepted as true. Since writing, however, he has heard the opinion expressed, by a musician who is qualified to speak as an authority, that the two themes have nothing to do with each other. The author himself is not competent to have an opinion on the subject, but because the statement as first made is closely bound up with the story, he has allowed it to stand unaltered.
The two extracts from MacDowell's “Woodland Sketches,” on pages 214 and 291, are reprinted with the kind permission of Professor MacDowell and of Arthur P. Schmidt, publisher.
CONTENTS
PART I
In the merry month of May.
KING MIDAS
CHAPTER I
“O Madchen, Madchen, Wie lieb' ich dich!”
It was that time of year when all the world belongs to poets, for their harvest of joy; when those who seek the country not for beauty, but for coolness, have as yet thought nothing about it, and when those who dwell in it all the time are too busy planting for another harvest to have any thought of poets; so that the latter, and t