This new estimate of the value of money was strengthened by the conviction that Karl would never do anything for himself, and that provision must be made for his future. To this must be attributed his solicitude for money which is constantly in evidence in his letters to his friends, as well as to his publishers, in which latter the disposition to drive a good bargain comes to the fore now for the first time. His letters to Ries are full of the subject of making money. "Wäre ich nicht noch immer der arme Beethoven," he says with unconscious humor, in one of the letters. "If I could but get to London, what would I not write for the Philharmonic Society. If it please God to restore my health, which is already improved, I may yet avail myself of the several propositions made me, not only from Europe, but even North America, and thus my finances might again prosper."
His naïve reference to this country[D] refers to the offer made him by the Händel and Haydn Society of Boston for an oratorio, the text of which was to be furnished by them. His work on the Ninth Symphony prevented him from accepting it, but it is something that will always redound to the credit of the society. That the critical faculty should, already at that time, have been sufficiently well developed in this country as to lead to such a commission, augurs well for its future art-history. While one portion were engaged in subduing the wilderness, fighting Indians, extending the frontier, others were already reaching out for the highest and best in art and literature.[E] It is a pleasant reflection that this country is no longer the terra incognita in musical matters that it was in Beethoven's time. The ready recognition extended Wagner from the first here, has, no doubt, helped to bring this about.
[D] When writing this letter Beethoven could have had no prevision that in this aboriginal North America, in a little village called Natick, there was then living a five-year-old boy, answering to the name of Alexander W. Thayer, who was eventually to furnish a biography of the master, so painstaking, exact and voluminous, that it is unique in its class. The Beethoven biography was Thayer's life-work, to which he gladly sacrificed his means as well, and was then only brought down to the year 1816. Thayer's name will always be associated with that of Beethoven, it is such a record-making work. It is published only in German at this writing (1904), but an English translation is promised on completion of the second edition, one volume of which has appeared in 1902. Mr. Thayer died in 1897.
[E] That Beethoven's genius had at an early date impressed itself on the minds of Americans, was commented on by Margaret Fuller in 1841. She says:
"It is observable as an earnest of the great future which opens for this country, that such a genius (Beethoven) is so easily and so much appreciated here, by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for him in Europe. He is felt because he expressed in full tones the thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not found means to stammer them as yet."
Meanwhile Ries, in London, was making active propaganda for him, with the result that an offer had come to him from Charles Neate asking him to come to London with a symphony and a concerto for the Philharmonic Society. Neate was a great admirer of Beethoven. He had spent eight months in Vienna some years previously, and the two became good friends during this sojourn. Three hundred guineas, and a benefit concert in which five hundred pounds more was to be guaranteed him, was the inducement held out for coming. This large sum tempted him strongly, placing him, so to speak, between two fires. The character of his nephew was such that he could not be left behind, while his education would be interrupted if he took him along. His entries in his journal show with what dread and apprehension he faced the ordeal of going among strangers. The project never would have been considered but for his desire to provide for Karl's future. The journey was never undertaken, but the project was never abandoned. It occupied his thoughts even in his last illness.
The scores of the Mass and Symphony were sold to Messrs. Schott of Mayence, one thousand florins having been obtained for the Mass, and six hundred for the Symphony. This put him in easy circumstances for a while, although the money question was a source of anxiety to him, more or less, for the remainder of his life. The ten thousand florins invested in Bank of Austria shares in 1815 was almost intact. He had drawn on it once or twice when matters had come to an extremity with him, but to touch it in any other case seemed to him like betraying a trust, since it had been set aside as a provision for his nephew. Just before the testimonial concert, he was at times absolutely without funds, his housekeeper being occasionally required to advance money from her savings to tide him over until a windfall should happen. The proceeds from the seven subscriptions to the Mass in D, amounting to three hundred and fifty ducats (about eight hundred dollars) helped him out to some extent, and something must have been coming in all the while from his previous publications. With good management there would have been sufficient for a man of his simple requirements, but in nothing was he so deficient as in business ability, or the faculty of looking after his worldly concerns. He was probably cheated right and left in his household matters.