So open-hearted and straightforward a character as Beethoven could not
have pictured himself with less reserve or greater truthfulness than he
did during his life. Frankness toward himself, frankness toward others
(though sometimes it went to the extreme of rudeness and ill-breeding)
was his motto. The joyous nature which was his as a lad, and which was
not at all averse to a merry prank now and then, underwent a change when
he began to lose his hearing. The dread of deafness and its consequences
drove him nearly to despair, so that he sometimes contemplated suicide.
Increasing hardness of hearing gradually made him reserved, morose and
gloomy. With the progress of the malady his disposition and character
underwent a decided change,--a fact which may be said to account for the
contradictions in his conduct and utterances. It made him suspicious,
distrustful; in his later years he imagined himself cheated and
deceived in the most trifling matters by relatives, friends, publishers,
servants.
Nevertheless Beethoven’s whole soul was filled with a high idealism
which penetrated through the miseries of his daily life; it was full,
too, of a great love toward humanity in general and his unworthy nephew
in particular. Towards his publishers he often appeared covetous and
grasping, seeking to rake and scrape together all the money possible;
but this was only for the purpose of assuring the future of his nephew.
At the same time, in a merry moment, he would load down his table with
all that kitchen and cellar could provide, for the reflection of his
friends. Thus he oscillated continuously between two extremes; but the
power which swung the pendulum was always the aural malady. He grew
peevish and capricious towards his best friends, rude, even brutal at
times in his treatment of them; only in the next moment to overwhelm
them most pathetically with attentions. Till the end of his life he
remained a sufferer from his passionate disposition over which he
gradually obtained control until, at the end, one could almost speak of
a sunny clarification of his nature.
He has heedlessly been accused of having led a dissolute life, of
having been an intemperate drinker. There would be no necessity of
contradicting such a charge even if there were a scintilla of evidence
to support it; a drinker is not necessarily a dishonorable man, least of
all a musician who drinks. But, the fact of the matter is that it is
not true. If once Beethoven wrote a merry note about merrymaking with
friends, let us rejoice that occasions did sometimes occur, though but
rarely, when the heart of the sufferer was temporarily gladdened.
He was a strict moralist, as is particularly evidenced by the notes in
his journal which have not been made public. In many things which befell
him in his daily life he was as ingenuous as a child. His personality,
on the whole, presented itself in such a manner as to invite the
intellectual and social Philistine to call him a fool.
160. “I shall print a request in all the newspapers that henceforth all
artists refrain from painting my picture without my knowledge; I never
thought that my own face would bring me embarrassment.”
(About 1803, to Christine Gerardi, because without his knowledge a
portrait of him had been made somewhere--in a cafe, probably.)
161. “Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the
art of music; I should yet conquer Napoleon!”
(To Krumpholz, the violinist, when he informed Beethoven of the victory
of Napoleon at Jena.)
162. “If I were a general and knew as much about strategy as I, a
composer, know about counterpoint, I’d give you fellows something to
do.”
(Called out behind the back of a French officer, his fist doubled,
on May 12, 1809, when the French had occupied Vienna. Reported by a
witness, W. Rust.)
163. “Camillus, if I am not mistaken, was the name of the Roman who
drove the wicked Gauls from Rome. At such a cost I would also take the
name if I could drive them wherever I found them to where they belong.”
(To Pleyel, publisher, in Paris, April, 1807.)
164. “I love most the realm of mind which, to me, is the highest of all
spiritual and temporal monarchies.”
(To Advocate Kauka in the summer of 1814. He had been speaking about the
monarchs represented in the Congress of Vienna.)
165. “I shall not come in person, since that would be a sort of
farewell, and farewells I have always avoided.”
(January 24, 1818, to Giannatasio del Rio, on taking his nephew Karl out
of the latter institute.)
166. “I hope still to bring a few large works into the world, and
then, like an old child, to end my earthly career somewhere among good
people.”
(October 6, 1802, to Wegeler.)
167. “O ye men, who think or declare me to be hostile, morose or
misanthropical, what injustice ye do me. Ye know not the secret cause of
what thus appears to you. My heart and mind were from childhood
disposed for the tender feelings of benevolence; I was always wishing to
accomplish great deeds.”
(October 6, 1802, in the so-called Heiligenstadt Will.)
168. “Divinity, thou lookest into my heart, thou knowest it, thou
knowest that love for mankind and a desire to do good have their abode
there. O ye men, when one day ye read this think that ye have wronged
me, and may the unfortunate console himself with the thought that he has
found one of his kind who, despite all the obstacles which nature put in
his path, yet did all in his power to be accepted in the ranks of worthy
artists and men!”
(From the Heiligenstadt Will.)
169. “I spend all my mornings with the muses;--and they bless me also in
my walks.”
(October 12, 1835, to his nephew Karl.)