Part 12

Beethoven was below the middle height, not more than five feet five inches; he was broad-shouldered, sturdy, with legs like columns. He had hairy hands, short fingers, with square ends as though they had been chopped. His movements were without grace but they were marked by their quickness. He was awkward in holding playing cards; he dropped everything that he took in his hands. When he first went about in Vienna he dressed in the fashion, with silken stockings, a peruke, long boots and a sword. In later years he wore a blue or dark green coat with copper buttons, a white waistcoat and a white cravat; and he carried an eyeglass. His felt hat was on the back of his head so that it touched his coat collar, as in the sketch of him by Lyser. His hat was often shabby and it excited the attention of loungers as he amused himself by strolling aimlessly in the streets, and by peering into the shop windows. The skirts of the coat were heavy laden; there would be within them an ear-trumpet, a carpenter's pencil, a stitched-book for use in his written conversation, a thick blank-book in quarto form, in which he jotted down vagrant thoughts and musical ideas. A pocket handkerchief would hang down to the calves of his legs, and the pockets bulged until they showed the lining. He would walk in deep meditation; talk with himself; at times make extravagant gestures.

He was simple in certain ways, easily gulled; so absent-minded that he once forgot he was the owner of a horse. He could appreciate wit, although he preferred rough jokes and horse play. He enjoyed pranks at the expense of others. He threw eggs at his cook and poured the contents of dishes over the heads of waiters. He was often brutal and rude in his speech to unoffending friends and strangers. The reproach of his being absurdly suspicious may be laid perhaps to his deafness. The son of a drunkard, he was on the whole abstemious; at the tavern he would sit apart with a glass of beer and a long pipe, and there he would brood. Of restless nature, he shifted constantly his lodgings, often with a whimsical excuse. He was fond of washing himself. He ate greedily badly cooked food whenever it occurred to him that he was hungry; and his digestion suffered thereby. He was fond of a panada with fresh eggs, macaroni sprinkled thickly with cheese of Parma, and fish. His favorite drinks were cool and pure water, and coffee which he prepared in a glass machine with extreme care, with sixty beans in a cup. It is said that in later years his table manners were beyond endurance. When he tried housekeeping for the sake of his nephew he was in continual trouble with his servants. He had little or no sense of order.

But the life of Beethoven, the man, was not merely a chronicle of small-beer, a record of shifting of lodgings, quarrels, rude sayings and personal discomforts. His character was a strange compound of greatness and triviality. The influence of heredity, the early unfortunate surroundings, the physical infirmity that was probably due to the sins of his fathers, the natural impatience of a man whose head was in the clouds with the petty cares of daily life:--all these unfitted him for social intercourse with the gallant world in which he was, however, a welcomed guest. He was afraid of elegance or he disdained it. Frankness, that was often another name for brutality, was dear to him, and he saw no wrong in calling men and women who talked when he played "hogs." He was proud, and his pride was offended easily. He was sure of his own work, he would therefore brook no contradiction; irritable, he was inclined to quarrel. He preferred nature to man, and was never so happy as when walking and composing in the open. In fields and woods he meditated his great compositions. Winter and summer he rose at the breaking of day and began to write, but in heat or cold, rain or sunshine, he would rush out suddenly for air. Yet dear as light and air were to him, the twilight was his favorite hour for improvising.

He used to read the Augsburg newspaper, and he was fond of talking of politics. It was a time of political unrest. Beethoven revered the heroes of Plutarch; the leaders in the American revolution; Napoleon Bonaparte as long as he was First Consul. A bronze statue of Brutus was on his work-table. It is not necessary, then, to add that he was a republican by sentiment. He dreamed of a future when all men should be brothers, and the finale of the Ninth Symphony is the musical expression of the dream and the wish. We have seen his fondness for women. There is no proof however that he was ever under the spell of an unworthy passion. A wife was to him a sacred being; and in an age when unlimited gallantry was regarded as an indispensable characteristic of a polished gentleman, Beethoven was pure in speech and in life. He was even prudish in his desire to find an untainted libretto for his music, and he could not understand how Mozart was willing to accept the text of "Don Giovanni." He was born in the Roman Catholic faith, and just before his death he took the Sacrament; but in his life he was rather a speculative deist. His prayer book was "Thoughts on the works of God in Nature," by Sturm. It was difficult for him to separate God from Nature. Many passages in his letters show his sense of religious duty to man and God, and his trust and his humility. He copied out and kept constantly on his work-table these lines found by Champollion Figeac on an Egyptian temple:

I am that which is, I am all that is, that has been, and that shall be; no mortal hand has lifted my veil. He is by himself and it is to him that everything owes existence.

Although his education had been neglected sadly in his youth, he was not without literary culture. He could not write a legible hand;--indeed, he himself described his chirography as "this cursed writing that I cannot alter"; his letters are often awkwardly expressed and incorrect; but they also abound in blunt directness, in personal revelation, and in a rude and overpowering eloquence. In his reading he was first enthusiastic over Klopstock; he soon wearied of the constant longing of that poet for death and abandoned him for Goethe. He was familiar with Schiller and the German poets that were his own contemporaries. His literary idols were Homer, Plutarch, and Shakespeare. He read the latter in the translation by Eschenburg, which he preferred to that by Schlegel; this translation was in his library, and it was thumbed by incessant reading. Schindler says that Plato's "Republic" was "transfused into his flesh and blood." He was an insatiable reader of histories. At the house of Mrs. Von Breuning in Bonn he was guided in a measure by the brother of his hostess. He knew Milton, Swift and other English writers in the translations, and he was kindly disposed thereby toward England and Englishmen. It is not so easy to discover his opinions concerning music from the few works found in his library, nor would it be wise to argue from the chance collection. There was a volume of pieces taken from the compositions of Palestrina, Vittoria, Nanini and other Italians. He had but little of Sebastian Bach, who was then known chiefly as the author of "The Well-tempered Clavichord." He owned a portion of the score of "Don Giovanni" and a few of Mozart's pianoforte sonatas; he preferred, however, the sonatas of Clementi, which he praised extravagantly. He was not ashamed to call himself the pupil of Salieri. He held Gyrowetz and Weigl in sincere esteem. Prejudiced at first against Weber, who had written violent critical articles against him, he changed his opinion after a more careful examination of "Der Freischütz," in which he found "the claw of the devil" side by side with "singular things." "I see what he intends, but in reading certain pages, such as the infernal chase, I cannot help smiling. After all, the effect may be right; it is necessary to hear it; but alas, I can no longer hear!" He was undoubtedly jealous of Rossini; "Fortune gave him a pretty talent and the gift of inventing agreeable melodies"; but he thought him no better than a scene-painter and accused him of a want of learning. Of all composers he appears to have most admired Handel dead and Cherubini, his contemporary. In a letter that was written by him to that great Italian-French composer, who is too much neglected in these restless days, Beethoven assured him that he put his operas above all other works for the stage; that he took a more lively interest in one of his new compositions than in his own; that he honored and loved him; that if it were not for his deafness, he would go to Paris that he might see him; and he begged him to consider him as worthy of ranking in the number of true artists. Of Handel he said, and shortly before his death, "This is the incomparable master, the master of masters. Go to him, and learn how to produce, with few means, effects that are like a thunder-clap."

But no collection of Beethoviana, no affidavits to the truth of anecdotes and conversations, no photographic, no phonographic record of his daily life can give a just idea of the character of this extraordinary man. Its grandeur, titanic in its aspirations, is best seen or felt in the music that was to him the true organ of speech. To comprehend, to appreciate Beethoven, the full knowledge of his compositions is necessary; and to the temperament of the composer must be added the corresponding temperament of a fit hearer. The Beethoven that has voiced the longings, the joys and the sorrows of humanity was not merely the man who walked in the streets of Vienna, not even the being to whom each tree sang the trisagion. The petty failings and the personal virtues of the individual assume in his music gigantic, supernatural proportions. In his life passion, tenderness, pride, arrogance, despair, tumultuous joy, fancy that was at times grotesque, gayety that often was clowning were strangely mingled; just as in "King Lear" the broken-hearted old man and the faithful fool defy together the raging of the elements. To the easy-going, amour-hunting citizen of Vienna Beethoven no doubt appeared, as to Rochlitz, "a very able man, reared on a desert island and suddenly brought fresh into the world," But to the faithful student of his life and works he seems one of the great high-priests of humanity. To the Beethoven of later years, shut off from the world, lonely and full of sorrow, the conceiver of unearthly music such as was never heard before, the sonorous hymn of the Opium Eater over the mystery known among men as Shakespeare might well be chanted:

"O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert, but that, the farther we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!"

BEETHOVEN'S WILL.

"TO MY BROTHERS CARL AND ––––. _To be read and acted upon after my death._"

"TO MY BROTHERS CARL AND –––– BEETHOVEN:

"O ye who think or say that I am rancorous, obstinate or misanthropical, what an injustice you do me! You little know the hidden cause of my appearing so. From childhood my heart and mind have been devoted to benevolent feelings, and to thoughts of great deeds to be achieved in the future. But only remember that for six years I have been the victim of a terrible calamity aggravated by incompetent doctors; led on from year to year by hopes of cure, and at last brought face to face with the prospect of a lingering malady, the cure of which may last for years, or may be altogether impossible. Born with an ardent, lively temperament, fond of social pleasures, I was early compelled to withdraw myself, and lead a life of isolation from all men. At times when I made an effort to overcome the difficulty, oh how cruelly was I frustrated by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! And yet it was impossible for me to say to people, 'Speak louder; shout, for I am deaf.' Ah, how was it possible I could acknowledge weakness in the very sense which ought to be more acute in my case than in that of others--a sense which at one time I possessed in a perfection to which few others in my profession have attained, or are likely to attain. Oh, this I can never do! Forgive me, then, if you see me turn away when I would gladly mix with you. Doubly painful is my misfortune, seeing that it is the cause of my being misunderstood. For me there can be no recreation in human intercourse, no conversation, no exchange of thoughts with my fellow-men. In solitary exile I am compelled to live. Whenever I approach strangers I am overcome by a feverish dread of betraying my condition. Thus has it been with me throughout the past six months I have just passed in the country. The injunction of my intelligent physician, that I should spare my sense of hearing as much as possible, well accorded with my actual state of mind; although my longing for society has often tempted me into it. But how humbled have I felt when some one near me has heard the distant sounds of a flute, and I have heard _nothing_; when some one has heard a shepherd singing, and again I have heard _nothing!_ Such occurrences brought me to the border of despair, and I came very near to putting an end to my own life. Art alone restrained me! Ah! it seemed impossible for me to quit this world forever before I had done all I felt I was destined to accomplish. And so I clave to this distressful life; a life so truly miserable that any sudden change is capable of throwing me out of the happiest condition of mind into the worst. Patience! I must now choose her for my guide! This I have done. I hope to remain firm in my resolve, until it shall please the relentless Fates to cut the thread of life. Perhaps I shall get better; perhaps not. I am prepared. To have to turn philosopher in my twenty-eighth year! It is no easy task--harder for the artist than for any one else. O God, Thou lookest down upon my inward soul; Thou knowest, Thou seest that love for my fellow-men, and all kindly feelings have their abode there!

"O ye who may one day read this, remember that you did me an injustice; and let the unhappy take heart when he finds one like himself who, in spite of all natural impediments, has done all that was in his power to secure for himself a place in the ranks of worthy artists and men. My brothers, Carl and ––––, as soon as I am dead request Dr. Schmidt in my name, if he be still alive, to describe my disease, and to add to these pages the history of my ailments, in order that the world, so far at least as is possible, may be reconciled to me after my death.

"Hereby I declare you both to be heirs of my little fortune (if it may so be called). Divide it honestly; bear with and help one another. The injuries you have done me I have, as you know, long since forgiven. You, brother Carl, I thank specially for the attachment you have shown towards me in these latter days. My wish is that your life may be more free from care than mine has been. Recommend Virtue to your children. She alone, not money, can give happiness. I speak from experience. It was she alone who raised me in the time of trouble; and I thank her, as well as my art, that I did not seek to end my life by suicide. Farewell, and love one another. I thank all friends, especially Prince Lichnowsky and Professor Schmidt. The instruments from Prince L–––– I should like to be kept by one of you; but let there be no quarreling between you in regard to this. As soon as you can turn them to more useful purpose, sell them. How happy shall I be if even when in my grave I can be useful to you!

"And thus it has happened. Joyfully I hasten to meet death. Should he come before I have had the opportunity of developing the whole of my artistic capacity, he will have come too soon in spite of my hard fate, and I shall wish he had come a little later. But even in that case I shall be content. Will he not release me from a state of endless misery? Come when thou will'st! I go to meet thee with a brave heart. Farewell, and do not quite forget me even in death! I have deserved this, since during my lifetime I have often thought of you, and tried to make you happy. So be it.

LUDVIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

"_Heiligenstadt, 6th October_, 1802."

"_Heiligenstadt, 10th October, 1802._--So I take leave of thee sorrowfully enough. Even the cherished hope, which I brought here with me of being cured, at least to a certain extent, has now utterly forsaken me. It has faded like the fallen leaves of autumn. Almost as I came here so do I depart. Even the lofty hope that upheld me during the beautiful summer days has vanished. O Providence! let one more day of pure joy be vouchsafed to me. The echo of true happiness has so long been a stranger to my heart!--When, when, O God! shall I again be able to feel it in the temple of nature and of man? Never?--no!--O that were too hard!"

THE DEAFNESS OF BEETHOVEN

One of the most painful of human spectacles is an intellect dominated by a physical ailment, a mind capable of the wise and useful exercise, of its powers enthralled or checked in its peripheral expression by some imperfection in the machinery in the midst of which it has its temporary abiding-place.

The mental effects of bodily disease, in which the organs of special sense are concerned, have been nowhere more carefully noted than in the cases of those whose aptitude for some particular line of intellectual process has raised them above the average of their fellows, and the biographies of celebrated men seldom fail to record some instance of those ills to which flesh is heir and to make deductions therefrom as to its influence upon the life-work of the individual.

There is no more pathetic picture than that of Beethoven in his later years, at an age when he should have been in the perfection of his physical manhood, deaf to overwhelming applause or striking in tumultuous discord the piano which to him was dumb.

References to this deafness, which was to Beethoven such a calamity, have been carefully studied and recorded by his various biographers, and occur nowhere more graphically than in those remarkable letters which give, without the need even of reading between the lines, so clear an exposition of the man as he was, as he aspired, and as he suffered. There has been as yet however no attempt to collate this evidence with a view to making a precise diagnosis of his case or with reference to the possible influence which the infirmity may have had upon his disposition, his habit of thought or possibly even upon the character of his compositions.

"It is hard to arrive," says Grove, "at any certain conclusion on the nature and progress of Beethoven's deafness owing to the vagueness of the information; difficulty of hearing appears to have shown itself about 1798 in singing and buzzing in his ears, loss of power to distinguish words though he could hear the tones of voice, and great dislike to sudden loud noise; it was even then a subject of the greatest pain to his sensitive nature; like Byron with his club-foot he lived in morbid dread of his infirmity being observed, a temper which often kept him silent, and when a few years later he found himself unable to hear the pipe of a peasant playing at a short distance in the open air, it threw him into the deepest melancholy, and he wrote the well-known letter to his brother in 1802, which goes by the name of his Will." The above passage is really an epitomization of Beethoven's case, and, in connection with the collateral evidence and viewed in the light of our present knowledge of aural disease, plainly sets forth the progress as well as the character of his disorder, the exciting cause of which must ever remain a question, though the inference from the course of his disease, from the report of the post-mortem examination and from the evidence afforded by Dr. Bartolini, is at least permissible, that Beethoven's deafness originated, in part at least, in a constitutional disorder which may have been one of his inheritances from his father. Be that as it may, it is shown that he first became definitely aware of his infirmity when he was twenty-eight years of age, that his attention was first drawn to it and his appreciation of it subsequently heightened by the concomitant symptom of subjective noises in the ears, rushing and roaring sounds which he designates as "sausen" and "brausen"; this symptom, common to many forms of aural disease, occurs in such cases as that of Beethoven's only after the changes in the ear have already become well established, it marks a definite stage in the progress of the malady and is explainable as follows: the normal circulation of blood through the blood-vessels is productive of sound, precisely as is the flow of water or other fluid through pipes; these sounds vary in pitch and in intensity in proportion to the size of the blood vessels and the rapidity of flow of the circulating fluid; in the smaller blood-vessels such as are found in the immediate vicinity of the perceptive portion of the human ear the flow of the blood is continuous and not rhythmic in response to the impulse from the heart as is the case in the larger arteries; the sound resulting from the circulation in the smaller blood vessels of the ear is a high pitched singing ranging from a tone of about 15000 v.s. to one of 45000 v.s. while the sounds produced by the larger vessels are very much lower in pitch; these sounds are present in normal conditions, but are not noticed because the adjustment of the sound-transmitting portion of the human ear, the drum head, the chain of small bones and the adjacent parts is such that sounds of this class, within certain limits of intensity, may be transmitted directly outward and pass unnoticed; in the event, however, of structural changes which interfere with the mobility of this sound-transmitting apparatus, the circulation sounds are retained within the ear and become appreciable. This does not occur however in chronic progressive cases such as was Beethoven's until the disease, insidious in its onset, is already well advanced, so that while the first mention of the impairment of hearing and of the subjective noises is made in 1798, it is more than probable that the disease had been at that time several years in progress.