(From the Heiligenstadt Will.)
235. “With joy shall I hasten forward to meet death; if he comes before I shall have had an opportunity to develop all my artistic capabilities, he will come too early in spite of my harsh fate, and I shall probably wish him to come at a later date. But even then I shall be content, for will he not release me from endless suffering? Come when you please, I shall meet you bravely.”
(From the Heiligenstadt Will.)
236. “Apollo and the muses will not yet permit me to be delivered over to the grim skeleton, for I owe them so much, and I must, on any departure for the Elysian Fields, leave behind me all that the spirit has inspired and commanded to be finished.”
(September 17, 1824, to Schott, music publisher in Mayence.)
237. “Had I not read somewhere that it is not pending man to part voluntarily from his life so long as there is a good deed which he can perform, I should long since have been no more, and by my own hand. O, how beautiful life is, but in my case it is poisoned.”
(May 2, 1810, to his friend Wegeler, to whom he is lamenting over “the
demon that has set up his habitat in my ears.”)
238. “I must abandon wholly the fond hope, which I brought hither, to be cured at least in a degree. As the fallen autumn leaves have withered, so are now my hopes blighted. I depart in almost the same condition in which I came; even the lofty courage which often animated me in the beautiful days of summer has disappeared.”
(From the Will. Beethoven had tried the cure at Heiligenstadt.)
239. “All week long I had to suffer and endure like a saint. Away with this rabble! What a reproach to our civilization that we need what we despise and must always know it near!”