[19] There is a vagueness in this passage, and especially in the words which precede it, which has exercised the minds of Köchel, Nohl and Deiters; but it is the opinion of the English Editor that the meaning has been reproduced in the above translation. As the reader may, however, wish to form his own opinion in the matter, which is certainly most interesting, the context is given in the original and what might be described as an expository rendering into English: Ich war in Wien, um aus der Bibliothek I. K. H. das mir Tauglichste auszusuchen. Die Hauptabsicht ist das geschwinde Treffen und mit der bessern Kunst-Vereinigung, wobei aber practische Absichten Ausnahmen machen, wofür die Alten zwar doppelt dienen, indem meistens reeller Kunstwerth (Genie hat doch nur der deutsche Händel und Seb. Bach gehabt) allein Freiheit, etc., that is: “I was in Vienna to seek out some things best suited to my purpose. What is chiefly needed is a quick recognition of the essential coupled with a better union of the arts [i. e., poetry and music] in respect of which practical considerations sometimes compel an exception, as we may learn in a twofold way from the old composers, where we find chiefly stress laid upon the artistically valuable (among them only the German Handel and Seb. Bach had genius) but freedom, etc.” Beethoven, presumably, was following the injunction noted in the Tagebuch and, for the purposes of the work which then engrossed him, was consulting authorities on ecclesiastical music. That his mind was full of his Mass is indicated by the somewhat irrelevant quotation from the text of the Credo. Was he not essaying a union between the technical perfection of the old masters and a more truthful, or literal, illustration of the missal text, wherefor freedom was necessary?
[20] The picture is now preserved among the rest of the relics which Schindler deposited in Berlin.
[21] See Kalischer-Shedlock, II, p. 151.
[22] “Hol Euch der Teufel! B’hüt Euch Gott!”
[23] Marx published it for the first time in facsimile in the appendix of Vol. II of his biography of Beethoven. In the Collected Works it appears on page 275, Series 25.
[24] “Two things fill the soul with ever new and increasing wonder and reverence the oftener the mind dwells upon them—the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”—Kant’s “Criticism of Practical Reason.”
[25] The greeting was in the form of a four-part canon beginning with a short homophonic chorus, the words: “Seiner Kaiserlichen Hoheit! Dem Erzherzog Rudolph! Dem geistlichen Fürsten! Alles Gute, alles Schöne!” The autograph is preserved by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. B. and H. Ges. Aus. Series XXIII, page 187.
[26] The reader who desires to read the documents in full is referred to the German edition of this biography for the decrees and minutes of the courts and to the Kalischer-Shedlock collection of letters for Beethoven’s pleadings.
[27] 11 Dr. Deiters remarks on this point: “No doubt Beethoven had hoped to attain his ends by general statements and thus spare himself the shame and humiliation which would have followed had he presented the truth, even in disguise, touching the lewdness and shameless life of his own sister-in-law; and her legal advisers and the members of the Magisterial Court knew how to turn this fact to their own advantage.”
[28] Made to Thayer.