I had sought relief again and again from this quarter, but found none.

After the tide had turned, and I was in process of recovery, I had been helped forward by music, but in a much less elevated manner.

I at this time first became acquainted with Weber's _Oberon_, and the extreme pleasure which I drew from its delicious melodies did me good by showing me a source of pleasure to which I was as susceptible as ever.

The good, however, was much impaired by the thought that the pleasure of music (as is quite true of such pleasure as this was, that of mere tune) fades with familiarity, and requires either to be revived by intermittence, or fed by continual novelty.

And it is very characteristic both of my then state, and of the general tone of my mind at this period of my life, that I was seriously tormented by the thought of the exhaustibility of musical combinations.