If for Hoffmann instrumental music is an initiation into the inner sanctum where Isis, the goddess of nature, is to be unveiled, then what does the naked truth of her body look like? What is the knowledge of the infinite that only the ineffable sounds of music can articulate but never name? In an early draft of Novalis' novel, The Disciples of Saïs, one initiate finally reaches the statue and dares to raise the veil of Isis. ‘But what does he see?’ writes Novalis. In many accounts of the myth, the vision of truth blinds and destroys the one who dares to lift the veil with impure hands, but in Novalis' retelling there is a difference: when the initiate lifts the veil, he sees – himself. The truth of God is in man.

For the Romantics, the mystical path to knowledge is deep in the recesses of the ego where Isis, the divinity of nature, is disclosed. Truth is a matter of self-revelation; the external quest always turns inwards. It is this introspective movement that is articulated by instrumental music. In fact, the age of instrumental music, says Hoffmann, is an ‘age striving for inner spirituality’.