During his last illness it was found necessary to draw off his water, and during the operation, he observed—‘Rather water from my body than from my pen.’
He received a flattering invitation from a musical society to compose a cantata, the request being accompanied by a portion of the sum to be paid for the work. Beethoven accepted it. For a very long time, however, nothing more was heard of him. Then came, couched in the most delicate terms, a letter to remind him of his engagement, signed, in consequence of the absence of the president of the society, by his locum tenens (Stellvertreter). The reply was,—‘I have not forgotten; such things must not be precipitated; I shall keep my word.—Beethoven, M.P.[12] (Selbstvertreter), se ipsum tenens.’
Alas! he could not keep his word.
If he happened not to be in the humour, it required pressing and reiterated entreaties to get him to the piano-forte. Before he began in earnest, he used sportively to strike the keys with the palm of his hand, draw his finger along the key-board, from one end to the other, and play all manner of gambols, at which he laughed heartily.
During his summer residence at the seat of a Mecænas, he was on one occasion so rudely pressed to exhibit before the stranger guests, that he became quite enraged, and obstinately refused a compliance which he considered would be an act of servility. A threat that he should be confined a prisoner to the house,—uttered, no doubt, without the slightest idea of its being carried into execution,—so provoked Beethoven, that, night time as it was, he ran off, upwards of three miles, to the next town, and thence, travelling post, hurried to Vienna. As some satisfaction for the indignity offered him, the bust of his patron became an expiatory sacrifice. It fell, shattered into fragments, from the bookcase to the floor.
After he had become deaf, Beethoven spoke little, but wrote his observations on his tablet. ‘What is Rossini?’ he was once asked. He wrote, in answer, ‘A good scene-painter.’