When the body of Beethoven was exhumed in 1863 an impression and
a photograph of his skull were taken. The head was remarkable. The
box of bone was unusually thick; the dimensions of the forehead were
extraordinary; in height the forehead came next to that of Napoleon,
and in breadth it surpassed it. His face was strong and sombre, and
while it was not without ugliness, it was expressive. The head was built
stoutly throughout. The complexion was red and highly accented; though
Schindler tells us that it grew yellow in summer. The hair was thick and
rebellious; it was originally black, and in later years turned white.
He shaved cheeks, chin and upper lip, and he was as awkward as Lord
Macaulay with a razor. The eyes were black, not large, and they shot forth
a piercing flame when he was excited. The nose was thick; the jaw was
broad; the mouth was firm, and with protruding lips; the teeth were white,
well-shaped, and sound, and when he laughed he showed them freely; the
square chin rested on a white cravat. The greater number of pictures of
Beethoven are idealized. The most faithful likenesses are the miniature by
Hornemann, taken in 1802, and sent by Beethoven to Breuning in token of
reconciliation; the drawing by Letronne, a French artist who was in Vienna
in 1814; and the portrait by Schimon in 1819. Two plaster masks were made;
one by Klein in 1812; the other, a death-mask, by the sculptor Dannhauser,
from which Fortuny made an etching.
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.
[Illustration: LIFE MASK OF BEETHOVEN
Taken in 1812 by Franz Klein, Beethoven being then in his forty-second
year. This mask and the bust made after it by the same artist (see page
341) are of the first importance in forming a correct judgment of the
value of all portraits of Beethoven.]
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.
[Illustration: DEATH MASK OF BEETHOVEN