Chapter 6

288. “I was formerly inconsiderate and hasty in the expression of my opinions, and thereby I made enemies. Now I pass judgment on no one, and, indeed, for the reason that I do not wish to do any one harm. Moreover, in the last instance I always think: if it is something decent it will maintain itself in spite of all attack and envy; if there is nothing good and sound at the bottom of it, it will fall to pieces of itself, bolster it up as one may.”

(In a conversation with Tomaschek, in October, 1814.)

289. “Even the most sacred friendship may harbor secrets, but you ought not to misinterpret the secret of a friend because you can not guess it.”

(About 1808, to Frau Marie Bigot.)

290. “You are happy; it is my wish that you remain so, for every man is best placed in his sphere.”

(Bonn, July 13, 1825, to his brother Johann, landowner in Gneisendorf.)

291. “One must not measure the cost of the useful.”

(To his nephew Karl in a discussion touching the purchase of an expensive book.)

292. “It is not my custom to prattle away my purposes, since every intention once betrayed is no longer one’s own.”

(To Frau Streicher.)

293. “How stupidity and wretchedness always go in pairs!”

(Diary, 1817.)

[Beethoven was greatly vexed by his servants.]

294. “Hope nourishes me; it nourishes half the world, and has been my neighbor all my life, else what had become of me!”

(August 11, 1810, to Bettina von Arnim.)

295. “Fortune is round like a globe, hence, naturally, does not always fall on the noblest and best.”

(Vienna, July 29, 1800, to Wegeler.)

296. “Show your power, Fate! We are not our own masters; what is decided must be,--and so be it!”

(Diary, 1818.)

297. “Eternal Providence omnisciently directs the good and evil fortunes of mortal men.”

(Diary, 1818.)

298. “With tranquility, O God, will I submit myself to changes, and place all my trust in Thy unalterable mercy and goodness.”

(Diary, 1818.)

299. “All misfortune is mysterious and greatest when viewed alone; discussed with others it seems more endurable because one becomes entirely familiar with the things one dreads, and feels as if one had overcome it.”

(Diary, 1816.)

300. “One must not flee for protection to poverty against the loss of riches, nor to a lack of friendship against the loss of friends, nor by abstention from procreation against the death of children, but to reason against everything.”

(Diary, 1816.)

301. “I share deeply with you the righteous sorrow over the death of your wife. It seems to me that such a parting, which confronts nearly every married man, ought to keep one in the ranks of the unmarried.”

(May 20, 1811, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig.)

302. “He who is afflicted with a malady which he can not alter, but which gradually brings him nearer and nearer to death, without which he would have lived longer, ought to reflect that murder or another cause might have killed him even more quickly.”

(Diary, 1812-18.)

303. “We finite ones with infinite souls are born only for sorrows and joy and it might almost be said that the best of us receive joy through sorrow.”

(October 19, 1815, to Countess Erdody.)

304. “He is a base man who does not know how to die; I knew it as a boy of fifteen.”

(In the spring of 1816, to Miss Fanny Giannatasio del Rio, when Beethoven felt ill and spoke of dying. It is not known that he was ever near death in his youth.)

305. “A second and third generation recompenses me three and fourfold for the ill-will which I had to endure from my former contemporaries.”

(Copied into his Diary from Goethe’s “West-ostlicher Divan.”)

306.

“My hour at last is come; Yet not ingloriously or passively I die, but first will do some valiant deed, Of which mankind shall hear in after time.”--Homer.

(“The Iliad” [Bryant’s translation], Book XXII, 375-378.)

(Copied into his Diary, 1815.)

307. “Fate gave man the courage of endurance.”

(Diary, 1814.)

308.

“Portia--How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

(Marked in his copy of Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.”)

309.

“And on the day that one becomes a slave, The Thunderer, Jove, takes half his worth away.”--Homer.

(“The Odyssey” [Bryant’s translation], Book XVII, 392-393. Marked by Beethoven.)

310.

“Short is the life of man, and whoso bears A cruel heart, devising cruel things, On him men call down evil from the gods While living, and pursue him, when he dies, With scoffs. But whoso is of generous heart And harbors generous aims, his guests proclaim His praises far and wide to all mankind, And numberless are they who call him good.”--Homer.

(“The Odyssey” [Bryant’s translation], Book XIX, 408-415. Copied into his diary, 1818.)

GOD

Beethoven was through and through a religious man, though not in the confessional sense. Reared in the Catholic faith he early attained to an independent opinion on religious things. It must be borne in mind that his youth fell in the period of enlightenment and rationalism. When at a later date he composed the grand Mass in honor of his esteemed pupil Archduke Rudolph,--he hoped to obtain from him a chapelmastership when the Archduke became Archbishop of Olmutz, but in vain,--he gave it forms and dimensions which deviated from the ritual.

In all things liberty was the fundamental principle of Beethoven’s life. His favorite book was Sturm’s “Observations Concerning God’s Works in Nature” (Betrachtungen uber die Werke Gottes in der Natur), which he recommended to the priests for wide distribution among the people. He saw the hand of God in even the most insignificant natural phenomenon. God was to him the Supreme Being whom he had jubilantly hymned in the choral portion of the Ninth Symphony in the words of Schiller: “Brothers, beyond you starry canopy there must dwell a loving Father!” Beethoven’s relationship to God was that of a child toward his loving father to whom he confides all his joys as well as sorrows.

It is said that once he narrowly escaped excommunication for having said that Jesus was only a poor human being and a Jew. Haydn, ingenuously pious, is reported to have called Beethoven an atheist.

He consented to the calling in of a priest on his death-bed. Eye-witnesses testify that the customary function was performed most impressively and edifyingly and that Beethoven expressed his thanks to the officiating priest with heartiness. After he had left the room Beethoven said to his friends: “Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est,” the phrase with which antique dramas were concluded. From this fact the statement has been made that Beethoven wished to characterize the sacrament of extreme unction as a comedy. This is contradicted, however, by his conduct during its administration. It is more probable that he wished to designate his life as a drama; in this sense, at any rate, the words were accepted by his friends. Schindler says emphatically: “The last days were in all respects remarkable, and he looked forward to death with truly Socratic wisdom and peace of mind.”

[I append a description of the death scene as I found it in the notebooks of A. W. Thayer which were placed in my hands for examination after the death of Beethoven’s greatest biographer in 1897:

“June 5, 1860, I was in Graz and saw Huttenbrenner (Anselm) who gave me the following particulars: ...In the winter of 1826-27 his friends wrote him from Vienna, that if he wished to see Beethoven again alive he must hurry thither from Graz. He hastened to Vienna, arriving a few days before Beethoven’s death. Early in the afternoon of March 26, Huttenbrenner went into the dying man’s room. He mentioned as persons whom he saw there, Stephen v. Breuning and Gerhard, Schindler, Telscher and Carl’s mother (this seems to be a mistake, i.e. if Mrs. v. Beethoven is right). Beethoven had then long been senseless. Telscher began drawing the dying face of Beethoven. This grated on Breuning’s feelings, and he remonstrated with him, and he put up his papers and left (?).

“Then Breuning and Schindler left to go out to Wohring to select a grave. (Just after the five--I got this from Breuning himself--when it grew dark with the sudden storm Gerhard, who had been standing at the window, ran home to his teacher.)

“Afterward Gerhard v. B. went home, and there remained in the room only Huttenbrenner and Mrs. van Beethoven. The storm passed over, covering the Glacis with snow and sleet. As it passed away a flash of lightning lighted up everything. This was followed by an awful clap of thunder. Huttenbrenner had been sitting on the side of the bed sustaining Beethoven’s head--holding it up with his right arm His breathing was already very much impeded, and he had been for hours dying. At this startling, awful peal of thunder, the dying man suddenly raised his head from Huttenbrenner’s arm, stretched out his own right arm majestically--like a general giving orders to an army. This was but for an instant; the arm sunk back; he fell back. Beethoven was dead.

“Another talk with Huttenbrenner. It seems that Beethoven was at his last gasp, one eye already closed. At the stroke of lightning and the thunder peal he raised his arm with a doubled-up fist; the expression of his eyes and face was that of one defying death,--a look of defiance and power of resistance.

“He must have had his arm under the pillow. I must ask him.

“I did ask him; he had his arm around B.’s neck.” H. E. K.]

311. “I am that which is. I am all that was, that is, and that shall be. No mortal man has ever lifted the veil of me. He is solely of himself, and to this Only One all things owe their existence.”

(Beethoven’s creed. He had found it in Champollion’s “The Paintings of Egypt,” where it is set down as an inscription on a temple to the goddess Neith. Beethoven had his copy framed and kept it constantly before him on his writing desk. “The relic was a great treasure in his eyes”--Schindler.)

312. “Wrapped in the shadows of eternal solitude, in the impenetrable darkness of the thicket, impenetrable, immeasurable, unapproachable, formlessly extended. Before spirit was breathed (into things) his spirit was, and his only. As mortal eyes (to compare finite and infinite things) look into a shining mirror.”

(Copied, evidently, from an unidentified work, by Beethoven; though possibly original with him.)

313. “It was not the fortuitous meeting of the chordal atoms that made the world; if order and beauty are reflected in the constitution of the universe, then there is a God.”

(Diary, 1816.)

314. “He who is above,--O, He is, and without Him there is nothing.”

(Diary.)

315. “Go to the devil with your ‘gracious Sir!’ There is only one who can be called gracious, and that is God.”

(About 1824 or 1825, to Rampel, a copyist, who, apparently, had been a little too obsequious in his address to Beethoven. [As is customary among the Viennese to this day. H. E. K.])

316. “What is all this compared with the great Tonemaster above! above! above! and righteously the Most High, whereas here below all is mockery,--dwarfs,--and yet Most High!!”

(To Schott, publisher in Mayence, in 1822--the same year in which Beethoven copied the Egyptian inscription.)

317. “There is no loftier mission than to approach the Divinity nearer than other men, and to disseminate the divine rays among mankind.”

(August, 1823, to Archduke Rudolph.)

318. “Heaven rules over the destiny of men and monsters (literally, human and inhuman beings), and so it will guide me, too, to the better things of life.”

(September 11, 1811, to the poet Elsie von der Recke.)

319. “It’s the same with humanity; here, too (in suffering), he must show his strength, i.e. endure without knowing or feeling his nullity, and reach his perfection again for which the Most High wishes to make us worthy.”

(May 13, 1816, to Countess Erdody, who was suffering from incurable lameness.)

320. “Religion and thorough-bass are settled things concerning which there should be no disputing.”

(Reported by Schindler.)

331. “All things flowed clear and pure out of God. Though often darkly led to evil by passion, I returned, through penance and purification to the pure fountain,--to God,--and to your art. In this I was never impelled by selfishness; may it always be so. The trees bend low under the weight of fruit, the clouds descend when they are filled with salutary rains, and the benefactors of humanity are not puffed up by their wealth.”

(Diary, 1815. The first portion seems to be a quotation, but Beethoven continues after the dash most characteristically in his own words and a change of person.)

322. “God is immaterial, and for this reason transcends every conception. Since He is invisible He can have no form. But from what we observe in His work we may conclude that He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.”

(Copied, with the remark: “From Indian literature” from an unidentified work, into the Diary of 1816.)

323. “In praise of Thy goodness I must confess that Thou didst try with all Thy means to draw me to Thee. Sometimes it pleased Thee to let me feel the heavy hand of Thy displeasure and to humiliate my proud heart by manifold castigations. Sickness and misfortune didst Thou send upon me to turn my thoughts to my errantries.--One thing, only, O Father, do I ask: cease not to labor for my betterment. In whatsoever manner it be, let me turn to Thee and become fruitful in good works.”

(Copied into the Diary from Sturm’s book, “Observations Concerning the Works of God in Nature.”)

APPENDIX

Some observations may finally be acceptable touching Beethoven’s general culture to which the thoughts of the reader must naturally have been directed by the excerpts from his writings set forth in the preceding pages. His own words betray the fact that he was not privileged to enjoy a thorough school-training and was thus compelled to the end of his days to make good the deficiencies in his learning. As a lad at Bonn he had attended the so-called Tirocinium, a sort of preparatory school for the Gymnasium, and acquired a small knowledge of Latin. Later he made great efforts to acquire French, a language essential to intercourse in the upper circles of society. He never established intimate relations with the rules of German. He used small initials for substantives, or capitalized verbs and adjectives according as they appeared important to him. His punctuation was arbitrary; generally he drew a perpendicular line between his words, letting it suffice for a comma or period as the case might be (a proceeding which adds not a little to the embarrassments of him who seeks to translate his sometimes mystical utterances).

It is said that a man’s bookcase bears evidence of his education and intellectual interests. Beethoven also had books,--not many, but a characteristic collection. From his faithful friend and voluntary servant Schindler we have a report on this subject. Of the books of which he was possessed at the time of his death there have been preserved four volumes of translations of Shakespeare’s works, Homer’s “Odyssey” in the translation of J. H. Voss, Sturm’s “Observations” (several times referred to in the preceding pages), and Goethe’s “West-ostlicher Divan.” These books are frequently marked and annotated in lead pencil, thus bearing witness to the subjects which interested Beethoven. From them, and volumes which he had borrowed, many passages were copied by him into his daily journal. Besides these books Schindler mentions Homer’s “Iliad,” Goethe’s poems, “Wilhelm Melster” and “Faust,” Schiller’s dramas and poems, Tiedge’s “Urania,” volumes of poems by Matthisson and Seume, and Nina d’Aubigny’s “Letters to Natalia on Singing,”--a book to which Beethoven attached great value. These books have disappeared, as well as others which Beethoven valued. We do not know what became of the volumes of Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch and Xenophon, or the writings of Pliny, Euripides, Quintilian, Ovid, Horace, Ossian, Milton and Thomson, traces of which are found in Beethoven’s utterances.

The catalogue made for the auction sale of his posthumous effects on September 7, 1827, included forty-four works of which the censorship seized five as prohibited writings, namely, Seume’s “Foot Journey to Syracuse,” the Apocrypha, Kotzebue’s “On the Nobility,” W.E. Muller’s “Paris in its Zenith” (1816), and “Views on Religion and Ecclesiasticism.” Burney’s “General History of Music” was also in his library, the gift, probably of an English admirer.

In his later years Beethoven was obliged to use the oft-quoted “conversation-books” in his intercourse with friends and strangers alike who wrote down their questions. Of these little books Schindler preserved no less than 134, which are now in the Royal Library in Berlin. Naturally Beethoven answered the written questions orally as a rule. An idea of Beethoven’s opinions can occasionally be gathered from the context of the questions, but frequently we are left in the dark.

Beethoven’s own characterization of his deafness as “singular” is significant. Often, even in his later years, he was able to hear a little and for a time. One might almost speak of a periodical visitation of the “demon.” In his biography Marx gives the following description of the malady: “As early as 1816 it is found that he is incapable of conducting his own works; in 1824 he could not hear the storm of applause from a great audience; but in 1822 he still improvises marvelously in social circles; in 1826 he studies their parts in the Ninth Symphony and Solemn Mass with Sontag and Ungher, and in 1825 he listens critically to a performance of the quartet in A-minor, op. 132.”

It is to be assumed that in such urgent cases his willpower temporarily gave new tension to the gradually atrophying aural nerves (it is said that he was still able to hear single or a few voices with his left ear but could not apprehend masses), but this was not the case in less important moments, as the conversation-books prove. In these books a few answers are also written down, naturally enough in cases not intended for the ears of strangers. At various times Beethoven kept a diary in which he entered his most intimate thoughts, especially those designed for his own encouragement. Many of these appear in the preceding pages. In these instances more than in any others his expressions are obscure, detached and, through indifference, faulty in construction. For the greater part they are remarks thrown upon the paper in great haste.

END OF THIS EDITION