Chapter VII

Rossini could write best when he was under the influence of Italian wine and sparkling champagne. Paisiello liked the warm bed in which to jot down his musical notions, and we are told that "it was between the sheets that he planned the 'Barber of Seville,' the 'Molinara,' and so many other _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of ease and gracefulness." Mozart could chat and play at billiards or bowls at the same time that he composed the most beautiful music. Sacchini found it impossible to write anything of any beauty unless a pretty woman was by his side, and he was surrounded by his cats, whose graceful antics stimulated and affected him in a marked fashion. "Gluck," Bombet says, "in order to warm his imagination and to transport himself to Aulis or Sparta, was accustomed to place himself in the middle of a beautiful meadow. In this situation, with his piano before him, and a bottle of champagne on each side, he wrote in the open air his two 'Iphigenias,' his 'Orpheus,' and some other works." The agencies which stimulated Beethoven's grandest thoughts are eminently characteristic of the man. He loved to let the winds and storms beat on his bare head, and see the dazzling play of the lightning. Or, failing the sublimer moods of Nature, it was his delight to walk in the woods and fields, and take in at every pore the influences which she so lavishly bestows on her favourites. His true life was his ideal life in art. To him it was a mission and an inspiration, the end and object of all things; for these had value only as they fed the divine craving within.

"Nothing can be more sublime," he writes, "than to draw nearer to the Godhead than other men, and to diffuse here on earth these Godlike rays among mortals." Again: "What is all this compared to the grandest of all Masters of Harmony--above, above?"

"All experience seemed an arch, wherethrough
Gleamed that untravelled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever as we move."

The last four years of our composer's life were passed amid great distress from poverty and feebleness. He could compose but little; and, though his friends solaced his latter days with attention and kindness, his sturdy independence would not accept more. It is a touching fact that Beethoven voluntarily suffered want and privation in his last years, that he might leave the more to his selfish and ungrateful nephew. He died in 1827, in his fifty-seventh year, and is buried in the Wahring Cemetery near Vienna. Let these extracts from a testamentary paper addressed to his brothers in 1802, in expectation of death, speak more eloquently of the hidden life of a heroic soul than any other words could:--

"O ye, who consider or declare me to be hostile, obstinate,
or misanthropic, what injustice ye do me! Ye know not the
secret causes of that which to you wears such an appearance.
My heart and my mind were from childhood prone to the tender
feelings of affection. Nay, I was always disposed even to
perform great actions. But, only consider that, for the last
six years, I have been attacked by an incurable complaint,
aggravated by the unskilful treatment of medical men,
disappointed from year to year in the hope of relief, and at
last obliged to submit to the endurance of an evil the cure
of which may last perhaps for years, if it is practicable at
all. Born with a lively, ardent disposition, susceptible to
the diversions of society, I was forced at an early age to
renounce them, and to pass my life in seclusion. If I strove
at any time to set myself above all this, oh how cruelly was
I driven back by the doubly painful experience of my
defective hearing! and yet it was not possible for me to say
to people, 'Speak louder--bawl--for I am deaf!' Ah! how
could I proclaim the defect of a sense that I once possessed
in the highest perfection--in a perfection in which few of
my colleagues possess or ever did possess it? Indeed, I
cannot! Forgive me, then, if ye see me draw back when I
would gladly mingle among you. Doubly mortifying is my
misfortune to me, as it must tend to cause me to be
misconceived. From recreation in the society of my
fellow-creatures, from the pleasures of conversation, from
the effusions of friendship, I am cut off. Almost alone in
the world, I dare not venture into society more than
absolute necessity requires. I am obliged to live as an
exile. If I go into company, a painful anxiety comes over
me, since I am apprehensive of being exposed to the danger
of betraying my situation. Such has been my state, too,
during this half year that I have spent in the country.
Enjoined by my intelligent physician to spare my hearing as
much as possible, I have been almost encouraged by him in my
present natural disposition, though, hurried away by my
fondness for society, I sometimes suffered myself to be
enticed into it. But what a humiliation when any one
standing beside me could hear at a distance a flute that I
could not hear, or any one heard the shepherd singing, and I
could not distinguish a sound! Such circumstances brought me
to the brink of despair, and had well-nigh made me put an
end to my life--nothing but my art held my hand. Ah! it
seemed to me impossible to quit the world before I had
produced all that I felt myself called to accomplish. And so
I endured this wretched life--so truly wretched, that a
somewhat speedy change is capable of transporting me from
the best into the worst condition. Patience--so I am told--I
must choose for my guide. Steadfast, I hope, will be my
resolution to persevere, till it shall please the inexorable
Fates to cut the thread.

"Perhaps there may be an amendment--perhaps not; I am
prepared for the worst--I, who so early as my twenty-eighth
year was forced to become a philosopher--it is not easy--for
the artist more difficult than for any other. O God! thou
lookest down upon my misery; thou knowest that it is
accompanied with love of my fellow-creatures, and a
disposition to do good! O men! when ye shall read this,
think that ye have wronged me; and let the child of
affliction take comfort on finding one like himself, who, in
spite of all the impediments of Nature, yet did all that lay
in his power to obtain admittance into the rank of worthy
artists and men.... I go to meet Death with joy. If he comes
before I have had occasion to develop all my professional
abilities, he will come too soon for me, in spite of my hard
fate, and I should wish that he had delayed his arrival. But
even then I am content, for he will release me from a state
of endless suffering. Come when thou wilt, I shall meet thee
with firmness. Farewell, and do not quite forget me after I
am dead; I have deserved that you should think of me, for in
my lifetime I have often thought of you to make you happy.
May you ever be so!"