"I once predicted your elevation, your world-wide fame," continued the stranger; "for I saw you sunk in despondency, and knew that your spirit must be aroused to bear up against trial. You now stand on the verge of a more dreadful abyss. You are in danger of making the gratification of your own pride, instead of the fulfilment of Heaven's will, the aim—the goal of your life's efforts."
"Oh! never," cried the artist, with you to guide me."
"We shall meet no more. I watched over you in boyhood; I have now come forth from retirement to give you my last warning; henceforth I shall observe your course in silence. And I shall not go unrewarded. I know too well the noble spirit that burns in your breast. You will—yes, you will fulfil your mission; your glory from this time shall rest on a basis of immortality. You shall be hailed the benefactor of humanity; and the spiritual joy you prepare for others shall return to you in full measure, pressed down and running over!"
The artist's kindling features showed that he responded to the enthusiasm of his visitor; but he answered not.
"And now, farewell. But remember, before you can accomplish this lofty mission, you must be baptized with a baptism of fire. The tones that are to agitate and stir up to revolution the powers of the human soul come not forth from an unruffled breast, but from the depths of a sorely wrung and tried spirit. You must steal the triple flame from heaven, and it will first consume the peace of your own being. Remember this—and droop not when the hour of trial comes! Farewell!"
The stranger crossed his hands over Beethoven's head, as if mentally invoking a blessing—folded him in his embrace, and departed. The artist made no effort to follow him. Deep and bitter were the thoughts that moved within him; and he remained leaning his head on the table, in silent revery, or walking the room with rapid and irregular steps, for many hours. At length the struggle was over; pale but composed, he took up the sheets of his opera and threw them carelessly into his desk. His next work, Christ in the Mount of Olives, attested the high and firm resolve of his mind, sustained by its self-reliance, and independent of popular applause or disapprobation. His great symphonies, which carried the fame of the composer to its highest point, displayed the same triumph of religious principle.
The Last Hours Of Beethoven.
Once more we find Beethoven, in the extreme decline of life. In one of the most obscure and narrow streets of Vienna, on the third floor of a gloomy-looking house, was now the abode of the gifted artist. For many weary and wasting years he had been the prey of a cruel malady, that defied the power of medicine for its cure, and had reduced him to a state of utter helplessness. His ears had long been closed to the music that owed its birth to his genius; it was long since he had heard the sound of a human voice. In the melancholy solitude to which he now condemned himself, he received visits from but few of his friends, and those at rare intervals. Society seemed a burden to him. Yet he persisted in his labors, and continued to compose, notwithstanding his deafness, those undying works which commanded for him the homage of Europe.
Proofs of this feeling, and of the unforgotten affection of those who knew his worth, reached him in his retreat from time to time. Now it was a medal struck at Paris, and bearing his features; now it was a new piano, the gift of some amateurs in London; at another time, some honorary title decreed him by the authorities of Vienna, or a diploma of membership of some distinguished musical society. All these moved him not, for he had quite outlived his taste for the honors of man's bestowing. What could they—what could even the certainty that he had now immortal fame—do to soften the anguish of his malady, from which he looked alone to death as a relief?
"They wrong me who call me stern or misanthropic," said he to his brother, who came in March, 1827, to pay him a visit. "God knoweth how I love my fellow-men! Has not my life been theirs? Have I not struggled with temptation, trial, and suffering from my boyhood till now, for their sakes? And now if I no longer mingle among them, is it not because my cruel infirmity unfits me for their companionship? When my fearful doom of separation from the rest of the human race is forced on my heart, do I not writhe with terrible agony, and wish that my end were come? And why, brother, have I lived, to drag out so wretched an existence? Why have I not succumbed ere now?