While I get what you are saying, I read it rather differently, more along the lines of there being different ways in which individuals can contribute to the greater good. Frederick’s contribution is keeping the mice entertained during those dreary winter months. Mice don’t live by crumbs alone.
During the long winter of the pandemic, the lively arts have been rendered silent out of necessity, an eventually that the British actor Simon Callow referred to as “the direst aspect of this, our plague.”
I’ve quoted this widely and used this recording, which I listen to from time to time and always find moving, in two of my writings. Fortunately little Frederick was not under plague restrictions. He was able to contribute the greatest gift [he had] to offer at exactly the moment when everybody need[ed him] most.”
Articles in which I quoted this, newest to oldest:
