(Diary, 1812-1818.)
18. “A little house here, so small as to yield one’s self a little
room,--only a few days in this divine Bruehl,--longing or desire,
emancipation or fulfillment.”
(Written in 1816 in Bruehl near Modling among the sketches for the
Scherzo of the pianoforte sonata op. 10.)
[Like many another ejaculatory remark of Beethoven’s, it is difficult to
understand. See Appendix. H. E. K.]
19. “When you reach the old ruins, think that Beethoven often paused
there; if you wander through the mysterious fir forests, think that.
Beethoven often poetized, or, as is said, composed there.”
(In the fall of 1817, to Mme. Streicher, who was at a cure in Baden.)
20. “Nature is a glorious school for the heart! It is well; I shall be a
scholar in this school and bring an eager heart to her instruction. Here
I shall learn wisdom, the only wisdom that is free from disgust; here I
shall learn to know God and find a foretaste of heaven in His knowledge.
Among these occupations my earthly days shall flow peacefully along
until I am accepted into that world where I shall no longer be a
student, but a knower of wisdom.”
(Copied into his diary, in 1818, from Sturm’s “Betrachtungen uber die
Werke Gottes in der Natur.”)
21. “Soon autumn will be here. Then I wish to be like unto a fruitful
tree which pours rich stores of fruit into our laps! But in the winter
of existence, when I shall be gray and sated with life, I desire for
myself the good fortune that my repose be as honorable and beneficent as
the repose of nature in the winter time.”
(Copied from the same work of Sturm’s.)