Beethoven, the Man and the Artist Part 12

He was a strict moralist, as is particularly evidenced by the notes in his journal which have not been made public. In many things which befell him in his daily life he was as ingenuous as a child. His personality, on the whole, presented itself in such a manner as to invite the intellectual and social Philistine to call him a fool.

160. "I shall print a request in all the newspapers that henceforth all artists refrain from painting my picture without my knowledge; I never thought that my own face would bring me embarra.s.sment."

(About 1803, to Christine Gerardi, because without his knowledge a portrait of him had been made somewhere--in a cafe, probably.)

161. "Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music; I should yet conquer Napoleon!"

(To Krumpholz, the violinist, when he informed Beethoven of the victory of Napoleon at Jena.)

162. "If I were a general and knew as much about strategy as I, a composer, know about counterpoint, I'd give you fellows something to do."

(Called out behind the back of a French officer, his fist doubled, on May 12, 1809, when the French had occupied Vienna. Reported by a witness, W. Rust.)

163. "Camillus, if I am not mistaken, was the name of the Roman who drove the wicked Gauls from Rome. At such a cost I would also take the name if I could drive them wherever I found them to where they belong."

(To Pleyel, publisher, in Paris, April, 1807.)

164. "I love most the realm of mind which, to me, is the highest of all spiritual and temporal monarchies."

(To Advocate Kauka in the summer of 1814. He had been speaking about the monarchs represented in the Congress of Vienna.)

165. "I shall not come in person, since that would be a sort of farewell, and farewells I have always avoided."

(January 24, 1818, to Giannatasio del Rio, on taking his nephew Karl out of the latter inst.i.tute.)

166. "I hope still to bring a few large works into the world, and then, like an old child, to end my earthly career somewhere among good people."

(October 6, 1802, to Wegeler.)

167. "O ye men, who think or declare me to be hostile, morose or misanthropical, what injustice ye do me. Ye know not the secret cause of what thus appears to you. My heart and mind were from childhood disposed for the tender feelings of benevolence; I was always wishing to accomplish great deeds."

(October 6, 1802, in the so-called Heiligenstadt Will.)

168. "Divinity, thou lookest into my heart, thou knowest it, thou knowest that love for mankind and a desire to do good have their abode there. O ye men, when one day ye read this think that ye have wronged me, and may the unfortunate console himself with the thought that he has found one of his kind who, despite all the obstacles which nature put in his path, yet did all in his power to be accepted in the ranks of worthy artists and men!"

(From the Heiligenstadt Will.)

169. "I spend all my mornings with the muses;--and they bless me also in my walks."

(October 12, 1835, to his nephew Karl.)

170. "Concerning myself nothing,--that is, from nothing nothing."

(October 19, 1815, to Countess Erdody.)

[A possible allusion to the line, "Nothing can come of nothing." from Shakespeare's "King Lear," Act 1, scene 1]

171. "Beethoven can write, thank G.o.d; but do nothing else on earth."

(December 22, 1822, to Ferdinand Ries, in London.)

172. "Mentally I often frame an answer, but when I come to write it down I generally throw the pen aside, since I am not able to write what I feel."

(October 7, 1826, to his friend Wegeler, in Coblenz. "The better sort of people, I think, know me anyhow." He is excusing his laziness in letter-writing.)

173. "I have the gift to conceal my sensitiveness touching a mult.i.tude of things; but when I am provoked at a moment when I am more sensitive than usual to anger, I burst out more violently than anybody else."

(July 24, 1804, to Ries, in reporting to him a quarrel with Stephan von Breuning.)

174. "X. is completely changed since I threw half a dozen books at her head. Perhaps something of their contents accidentally got into her head or her wicked heart."

(To Mme. Streicher, who often had to put Beethoven's house in order.)

175. "I can have no intercourse, and do not want to have any, with persons who are not willing to believe in me because I have not yet made a wide reputation."

(To Prince Lobkowitz, about 1798. A cavalier had failed to show him proper respect in the Prince's salon.)