(Beginning of the Diary, 1812-18.)
230. “Leave operas and all else alone, write only for your orphan, and then a cowl to close this unhappy life.”
(Diary, 1816.)
231. “I have often cursed my existence; Plutarch taught me resignation. I shall, if possible, defy Fate, though there will be hours in my life when I shall be the most miserable of God’s creatures. Resignation! What a wretched resort; yet it is the only one left me!”
(Vienna, June 29, 1800, to Wegeler.)
232. “Patience, they tell me, I must now choose for a guide. I have done so. It shall be my resolve, lastingly, I hope, to endure until it pleases the implacable Parca: to break the thread. There may be improvement,—perhaps not,—I am prepared.”
(From the Heiligenstadt Will.)
233. “Let all that is called life be offered to the sublime and become a sanctuary of art. Let me live, even through artificial means, so they can be found.”
(Diary, 1814, when Beethoven was being celebrated extraordinarily by the
royalties and dignitaries gathered at the Congress of Vienna.)
234. “Ah! it seemed impossible for me to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce; and so I prolonged this wretched existence.”