[160] It was Herbert Spencer who remarked to a young man who had beaten him at billiards that while to be able to play well was a praiseworthy accomplishment, such playing as he had just witnessed betokened an ill-spent life.
[161] The date was obtained by Thayer from the records of the hospital on September 22, 1862. F. Helm, then Director of the hospital, certified to the facts of reception, treatment and discharge, but stated that no history of the case could be found in the records.
[162] He did not live to see this wish fulfilled; but it was in the end. Therese van Beethoven, Johann’s wife, died on November 20, 1828, at Wasserhof; Johann died in Vienna on January 12, 1848, and though one of Beethoven’s sensation-mongering biographers at one time printed the monstrous falsehood that he had married his wife’s illegitimate daughter in order to keep the family possessions in his hands, and at another that he had invested his money so that he might use it up during his life and leave nothing to his heirs, the fact is that Johann made Karl his sole heir and that under the will, after paying the costs of probate and administration and a legacy to his housekeeper, over 42,000 florins passed into his nephew’s hands.
[163] Wawruch was a native of Nemtschütz in Moravia. At Olmütz he was a student of theology, but before consecration to the priesthood he came to Vienna as tutor and there decided to abandon the church for medicine. In the course of time he became assistant and also son-in-law to Professor Hildebrand, the director of the General Hospital. Thence he went to Prague as professor of general pathology and pharmacology and, returning to Vienna, became professor of special pathology and medical clinics in the surgical department of the Hospital. He died in 1842. He was accused of adhering to old-fashioned theories in his practice and of having been antagonistic to the determinations of pathological anatomy, and the criticisms of von Breuning and others have pursued him through all the books devoted to Beethoven’s life; yet the scientific determinations of to-day offer justification of his diagnosis and treatment of Beethoven’s case so far as it is possible to judge at this late day.
[164] Holz’s statement on this point has already been given in an earlier chapter. To Otto Jahn Dr. Bertolini said: “Beethoven liked to drink a glass of wine, but he was never a drinker or a gourmand.”
[165] “Better from my belly than from my pen,” is another remark credited to him by Seyfried.
[166] The Royal Library acquired the autograph manuscripts of the instrumental movements of the Symphony from Schindler, and the choral part from the Artaria Collection of Vienna when it was dispersed by sale in 1901. The autograph is not intact, however, the coda of the Scherzo, consisting of four pages, having been given to Moscheles by Schindler on September 14, 1827. Moscheles in turn gave the relic to Henry Phillips. In July, 1907, it was purchased at a public sale by Mr. Edward Speyer, its owner at the present writing. The autograph of the Finale, too, had been mutilated, a page containing the five measures immediately preceding the Allegro energico, 6-4 time, with the words “Über Sternen muss er wohnen,” having been removed. It was sold by an autograph dealer of Berlin to Charles Malherbe, of Paris, who on his death bequeathed it to the Conservatoire. As published, the Allegro non tanto contains eight measures which Beethoven did not write in the autograph, but are, no doubt, an addition made by him in a revision. It would be a beautiful act of piety to assemble the autograph score and publish it in facsimile.
[167] Mr. Thayer, who has given expression in these pages to his belief that Schindler was honest, in transcribing this page of the Conversation Book writes these words: “It is to be noted, first, that the writing (‘The Old Woman,’ etc.) does not correspond with the rest, and secondly, that Die Alte was no longer in Beethoven’s service. It is evident on inspection and from the talk in these last books about Thekla and other servants that Schindler inserted these words long afterwards. The ‘Es muss sein’ can only refer here to Beethoven’s receipt for the ring.” Whether or not Thayer suspected what may have been Schindler’s purpose in making the interlineation does not appear.
[168] Schindler, impeaching Dr. Wawruch’s accuracy here, denies that Beethoven worked on oratorio of “Saul and David” during his last illness. Thayer in a note directs attention to the fact that Beethoven was confessedly deeply absorbed in Handel’s scores, which he had received only a short time before, and that before the end of December Kiesewetter sent a request through Holz for a return of the pianoforte score of “Saul” as no longer necessary, now that the scores were come.
[169] Dr. von Breuning should have said “third.”