How greatly did Beethoven admire the genius of Franz Schubert! But it was not until he was on his death-bed that he had a complete perception of that talent, which the representations of certain persons had previously caused him to underrate. When I made him acquainted with Schubert's Ossians Gesänge, die Bürgschaft, die junge Nonne, Grenzen der Menschheit, and some other productions of the same composer, he exclaimed, with deep emotion:—"Truly Schubert is animated by a spark of heavenly fire!"
I could quote the names of many other artists, who will cherish, as long as they live, a gratifying remembrance of the kindness shown to them by Beethoven. That our great master was not disposed to treat with undue courtesy artistical presumption, which sometimes, in his latter years, boldly raised its head before him, may naturally be supposed. Exempla sunt odiosa. But on such aberrations Beethoven's high mind looked down with compassion.
I will close this chapter with the following remarks:—
Beethoven possessed too much genuine religious feeling to believe that Nature had created him to be a model for future ages, as many of his worshippers, not unfrequently actuated by interested motives, would fain have persuaded him. A stranger to the business of this world, and living, as it were, in another, Beethoven was like a child, to whom every external influence gives a new impulse; and who in like manner does not turn an unwilling ear to flattery, because incapable of estimating the purpose for which the adulation is bestowed. This ignorance of the world—this lofty or puerile feeling, whichever it may be termed, was in Beethoven only transitory, and he soon recovered his manly tone of mind. Beethoven well knew and always respected the motto—Palmam qui meruit ferat! His upright, impartial mind led him to bestow, unsolicited, the most unequivocal approbation on foreign talent; often as he found that approbation lessened, or discovered that it had been altogether cast away upon certain "backsliding men," as he termed them. Beethoven always bore in mind that a Mozart had preceded him, and that another might follow him. He ever cherished high expectations of the future, for he fervently believed in the omnipotence of the Creator, and the inexhaustibility of Nature. Oh! how great was Beethoven as a man! Who ever learned to know him on that side, and was capable of comprehending and judging not only of his mighty genius but also of his noble heart, will not fail to place the moral man, if not above the great composer, at least on the same level with him.
Beethoven was very fond, especially in the dusk of the evening, of seating himself at the piano to improvise, or he would frequently take up the violin or viola, for which purpose these two instruments were always left lying on the piano. In the latter years of his life, his playing at such times was more painful than agreeable to those who heard it. The inward mind alone was active; but the outward sense no longer co-operated with it: consequently the outpourings of his fancy became scarcely intelligible. Sometimes he would lay his left hand flat upon the key-board, and thus drown, in discordant noise, the music to which his right was feelingly giving utterance. It is well known that Beethoven, in his early years, did not perform his own compositions purely; for no other reason, however, than his want of time to keep the mechanical power of his fingers in practice; but his improvisations, when he was free from the restraint of reading notes, were the finest effusions of the kind imaginable. The imperial court piano-forte-maker, Conrad Graf, made for Beethoven a sound-conductor, which, being placed on the piano-forte, helped to convey the tone more distinctly to his ear; but though this contrivance was ingenious, it afforded no assistance in Beethoven's case of extreme deafness. The most painful thing of all was to hear him improvise on stringed instruments, owing to his incapability of tuning them. The music which he thus produced was frightful, though in his mind it was pure and harmonious.
In winter as well as in summer it was Beethoven's practice to rise at day-break, and immediately to sit down to his writing-table. There he would labour till two or three o'clock, his usual dinner-time. Meanwhile he would go out once or twice in the open air, where, to use M. Saphir's phrase, he would work and walk. Then, after the lapse of half an hour or an hour, he would return home to note down the ideas which he had collected. As the bee gathers honey from the flowers of the meadows, so Beethoven often collected his most sublime ideas while roaming about in the open fields. The habit of going abroad suddenly and as unexpectedly returning, just as the whim happened to strike him, was practised by Beethoven alike at all seasons of the year: cold or heat, rain or sun-shine, were all alike to him. In the autumn he used to return to town as sun-burnt as though he had been sharing the daily toil of the reapers and gleaners. Winter restored his somewhat yellow complexion. In No. 2 of the Appendix will be found a fac-simile of some of his first ideas, noted down with pencil, immediately as they were conceived amidst the inspiring scenery of nature.
The use of the bath was as much a necessity to Beethoven as to a Turk; and he was in the habit of submitting himself to frequent ablutions. When it happened that he did not walk out of doors to collect his ideas, he would not unfrequently, in a fit of the most complete abstraction, go to his wash-hand basin, and pour several jugs of water upon his hands, all the while humming and roaring, for sing he could not. After dabbling in the water till his clothes were wet through, he would pace up and down the room, with a vacant expression of countenance, and his eyes frightfully distended; the singularity of his aspect being often increased by an unshaven beard. Then he would seat himself at his table and write; and afterwards get up again to the wash-hand basin, and dabble and hum as before. Ludicrous as were these scenes, no one dared venture to notice them, or to disturb him while engaged in his inspiring ablutions, for these were his moments, or I should rather say his hours, of profoundest meditation. It will be readily believed, that the people in whose houses he lodged were not very well pleased when they found the water trickling through the floor to the ceiling below, as sometimes happened; and Beethoven's change of lodgings was often the consequence of these occurrences. On such occasions comical scenes sometimes ensued.
At every quarterly payment of his pension Beethoven was required, before he could receive the money, to procure from the curate of the district in which he resided, a certificate to prove that he was actually living. When he happened to be in the country, he used to get me or some other friend to draw up this certificate, and whenever he wrote to make this request it was always in some humorous or jesting manner. On one of these occasions he addressed to me a note containing merely the following words, unaccompanied by any explanation; he of course knew very well that I should understand their import:—