XII.
"October 14, 1825.
"I inform you in haste, that I will certainly come to-morrow morning, even if it should rain, therefore let me be sure of finding you. I shall rejoice to see you once more, and should some dark clouds appear, do not ascribe them to intentional resentment. They will be entirely dispersed by the improved behaviour you have promised, by happiness, based upon sincerity and active industry. Who would not rejoice to see the wanderer return again to the right path? This happiness I hope to experience.
"BEETHOVEN."
These fragments will be sufficient to exhibit Beethoven's situation, his state of mind, and his sufferings, as described by himself; not less plainly do they serve to show his relation to various members of his family. Above all, however, we perceive in these letters the noble high-minded man; and such was Beethoven, not only in moments of excitement, but throughout his whole life. Could I add, in reference to the last extract, that Beethoven long enjoyed the felicity of seeing his ill-advised nephew, then nineteen years old, walking in the paths of virtue and honour, I should breathe more freely after the painful emotions excited by thus recalling the past, and awakening the remembrance of what I have gone through in witnessing the patience, with which, for years, the great artist bore his cross, the weight of which sometimes bowed him to the ground. Alas! all this was only the prelude to that catastrophe which was destined to give the death-blow to our illustrious master!
Notwithstanding all care, attention, and kindness on the part of Beethoven[98] and the joint guardian of this unhappy young man, the vice-director of the Polytechnic Institution, he again entered the slippery path which he had been prevailed on to quit, and when, in August 1826, he was urged to work up many examinations at the Institution, which were in arrear, he made an attempt on his life. This attempt failed, but it placed him as a suicide, according to the laws of his country, in the hands of justice, for it is presumed that nothing but a want of religion can possibly lead to so violent a step; malefactors of this kind are consequently placed under the care of the civil authorities, with a view of promoting the amendment of their religious principles.
Thus it was with the nephew of Beethoven, and when the time came, when he was to be again given over to the care of his guardian, it was done with a positive injunction on the part of the authorities, to keep him only one day in his house, since he was not permitted to remain longer in Vienna. This took place towards the end of the month of October, and now it was hard to know what was to be done. Johann van Beethoven offered his brother his country-house as a temporary residence for his nephew, until Hofrath von Breuning should succeed in procuring for the young man a commission as cadet in some regiment, since he had now an inclination to a military life. After a great deal of trouble, M. von Breuning succeeded in interesting Lieutenant Field-Marshal Stutterheim for the deeply afflicted Beethoven, and he consented to take the nephew into his regiment. Out of gratitude, Beethoven dedicated to this officer his grand Quartett in C sharp minor.
The severity of the season, and the incredibly thoughtless conduct of which the nephew and the other relations of Beethoven were guilty towards him obliged him to return to Vienna. This journey, which, in so advanced a period of the year, could not be performed in one day, was made in an open carriage, because, as Beethoven himself assured me, his brother had refused to trust him with his close one.