Beethoven, the Man and the Artist Part 17

(In 1825, complaining of the misery caused by his domestics.)

240. "The best thing to do not to think of your malady is to keep occupied."

(Diary, 1812-18.)

241. "It is no comfort for men of the better sort to say to them that others also suffer; but, alas! comparisons must always be made, though they only teach that we all suffer, that is err, only in different ways."

(In 1816, to Countess Erdody, on the death of her son.)

242. "The portraits of Handel, Bach, Gluck, Mozart and Haydn in my room,--they may help me to make claim on toleration."

(Diary, 1815-16.)

243. "G.o.d, who knows my innermost soul, and knows how sacredly I have fulfilled all the duties but upon me as man by humanity, G.o.d and nature will surely some day relieve me from these afflictions."

(July 18, 1821, to Archduke Rudolph, from Unterubling.)

244. "Friends.h.i.+p and similar sentiments bring only wounds to me. Well, so be it; for you, poor Beethoven, there is no outward happiness; you must create it within you,--only in the world of ideality shall you find friends."

(About 1808, to Baron von Gleichenstein, by whom he thought himself slighted.)

245. "You are living on a quiet sea, or already in the safe harbor; you do not feel the distress of a friend out in the raging storm,--or you must not feel it."

(In 1811, to his friend Gleichenstein, when Beethoven was in love with the Baron's sister-in-law, Therese Malfatti.)

246. "I must have a confidant at my side lest life become a burden."

(July 4, 1812, to Count Brunswick, whom he is urging to make a tour with him, probably to Teplitz.)

247. "Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men.

At my age I need a certain uniformity and equableness of life; can such exist in our relations.h.i.+p?"

(June 7, 1800 (?), to the "Immortal Beloved.")

248. "O Providence! vouchsafe me one day of pure joy! Long has the echo of perfect felicity been absent from my heart. When O, when, O Thou Divine One, shall I feel it again in nature's temple and man's? Never?

Ah! that would be too hard!"

(Conclusion of the Heiligenstadt Will.)

WORLDLY WISDOM

249. "Freedom,--progress, is purpose in the art-world as in universal creation, and if we moderns have not the hardihood of our ancestors, refinement of manners has surely accomplished something."

(Middling, July 29, 1819, to Archduke Rudolph.)

250. "The boundaries are not yet fixed which shall call out to talent and industry: thus far and no further!"

(Reported by Schindler.)

251. "You know that the sensitive spirit must not be bound to miserable necessities."

(In the summer of 1814, to Johann Kauka, the advocate who represented him in the prosecution of his claims against the heirs of Prince Kinsky.)

252. "Art, the persecuted one, always finds an asylum. Did not Daedalus, shut up in the labyrinth, invent the wings which carried him out into the open air? O, I shall find them, too, these wings!"

(February 19, 1812, to Zmeskall, when, in 1811, by decree of the Treasury, the value of the Austrian currency was depreciated one-fifth, and the annuity which Beethoven received from Archduke Rudolph and the Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky reduced to 800 florins.)

253. "Show me the course where at the goal there stands the palm of victory! Lend sublimity to my loftiest thoughts, bring to them truths that shall live forever!"

(Diary, 1814, while working on "Fidelio.")

254. "Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no n.o.bler or more valuable possession than time; therefore never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

(From the notes in Archduke Rudolph's instruction book.)