[29] The music for Goethe's play Egmont was commenced in 1809. Beethoven had also wished to write the music to William Tell, but Gyrovetz was chosen before him.
[30] Conversation with Schindler.
[31] But written (so it seems) from Korompa at the Brunswick's house.
[32] This portrait can still be seen in Beethoven's house at Bonn. It is reproduced in Frimmel's Life of Beethoven, page 29, and in the "Musical Times," 15th December, 1892.
[33] To Gleichenstein.
[34] "The heart is the mainspring of all that is great" (to Giannatasio del Rio).
[35] "Goethe's poems give me great happiness," he wrote to Bettina Brentano on 19th February, 1811. And also "Goethe and Schiller are my favourite poets, together with Ossian and Homer, whom, unfortunately, I can only read in translations." To Breitkopf & Härtel, 8th August, 1809, Nohl, New Letters, LIII.
It is remarkable that Beethoven's taste in literature was so sound in view of his neglected education. In addition to Goethe, who he said was "grand, majestic, always in D major" (and more than Goethe) he loved three men, Homer, Plutarch and Shakespeare. Of Homer's works he preferred the Odyssey to the Iliad; he was continually reading Shakespeare (from a German translation) and we know with what tragic grandeur he has set Coriolanus and the Tempest in music. He read Plutarch continually, as did all who were in favour of the revolution. Brutus was his hero, as was also the case with Michael Angelo; he had a small statue of him in his bedroom. He loved Plato, and dreamed of establishing his republic in the whole world. "Socrates and Jesus have been my models," he wrote once on his note-books (Conversations during 1819 and 1820).
[36] To Bettina von Arnim. The authenticity of Beethoven's letters to Bettina, doubted by Schindler, Marx and Deiters, has been supported by Moritz Carriere, Nohl and Kalischer. Bettina has perhaps embellished them a little, but the foundation remains reliable.
[37] "Beethoven," said Goethe to Zelter, "is, unfortunately, possessed of a wild and uncouth disposition; doubtless, he is not wrong in finding the world detestable, but that is not the way to make it pleasant for himself or for others. We must excuse and pity him for he is deaf." After that he did nothing against Beethoven nor did he do anything for him, but he ignored him completely. At the bottom, however, he admired Beethoven's music and feared it also. He was afraid it would cause him to lose that mental calm which he had gained through so much trouble. A letter of young Felix Mendelssohn, who passed through Weimar in 1830, gives us a very interesting glimpse into the depths of that storm-tossed passionate soul, controlled as it was by a masterly and powerful intellect.... "At first," writes Mendelssohn, "he did not want to hear Beethoven's name mentioned, but after a time he was persuaded to listen to the First Movement of the Symphony in C minor, which moved him deeply. He would not show anything outwardly, but merely remarked to me, 'that does not touch me, it only surprises me.' After a time he said 'It is really grand, it is maddening, you would think the house was crumbling to pieces.' Afterwards, at dinner, he sat pensive and absorbed until he began to question me about Beethoven's music. I saw quite clearly that a deep impression had been made on him...." (For information on the relations between Goethe and Beethoven, see various articles by Frimmel).