[47] Except for his intimate friendship with Countess Maria von Erdödy, a constant sufferer like himself, afflicted with an incurable malady. She lost her only son suddenly in 1816. Beethoven dedicated to her in 1809 his two Trios Op. 70; and in 1815-17, his two great Sonatas for Violoncello Op. 102.
[48] Besides his deafness, his health grew worse from day to day. During October, 1816, he was very ill. In the summer of 1817 his doctor said he had a chest complaint. During the winter, 1817-18, he was tormented with his so-called phthisis. Then he had acute rheumatism in 1820-21, jaundice in 1821, and several maladies in 1823.
[49] A change of style in his music, beginning with the Sonata Op: 101, dates from this time.
[50] Beethoven's conversation-books form more than 11,000 manuscript pages, and can be found bound to-day in the Imperial Library at Berlin.
[51] Schindler, who had been intimate with Beethoven since 1819, had known him slightly since 1814; but Beethoven had found it very difficult to be friendly; he treated him at first with disdainful haughtiness.
[52] See the admirable notes of Wagner on Beethoven's deafness (Beethoven, 1870).
[53] He loved animals and pitied them. The mother of the historian, von Frimmel, says that for a long while she had an involuntary dislike for Beethoven, because when she was a little girl he drove away with his handkerchief all the butterflies that she wanted to catch.
[54] He was always uncomfortable in his lodgings. In thirty-five years in Vienna, he changed his rooms thirty times.
[55] Beethoven had written personally to Cherubini, who was "of all his contemporaries the one whom he most esteemed." Cherubini did not reply.
[56] "I never avenge myself," he wrote besides to Madame Streicher. "When I am obliged to act against others, I only do what is necessary to defend myself or to prevent them from doing one harm."