Chapter X (1)

The Year 1810--Decrease in Productivity--Beethoven’s Project
of Marriage--Therese Malfatti--Bettina von Arnim and Her
Correspondence with Goethe--The Music to “Egmont”--Productions of
the Year.

The topics last under notice have carried us far onward, even to the last years of Beethoven. We now return to the end of 1809--to the master in the full vigor and maturity of his powers. The last months of this year had been marked by an untiring and efficient industry; his sketchbooks abounded in the noblest themes, hints and protracted studies for orchestral, chamber and vocal compositions; and several important works--among them the Seventh Symphony--were well advanced. The princes, whose generosity had just placed him, for the present at least, beyond the reach of pecuniary anxieties, may well have expected the immediate fulfillment of “the desire that he surpass the great expectations which are justified by his past achievements.” They were bitterly disappointed. Kinsky did not live to hear any new orchestral work from that recently so prolific pen; Lobkowitz, whose dissatisfaction is upon record, heard but three; while the Archduke saw the years pass away comparatively fruitless, hardly more being accomplished in ten, than formerly in two--the marvellous year 1814 excepted. The close of 1809 terminated a decade (1800-1809) during which--if quality be considered, as well as number, variety, extent and originality--Beethoven’s works offer a more splendid exhibition of intellectual power than those of any other composer produced within a like term of years; and New Year, 1810, began another (1810-19), which, compared with the preceding, exhibits an astonishing decrease in the composer’s productiveness. The contrast is rendered more striking by the fact that many of the principal works completed in the second decade belong in plan and partly in execution to the first.

Schindler’s division of Beethoven’s life into three distinctly marked periods appears forced--rather fanciful than real; but whoever makes himself even moderately conversant with the subject, soon perceives that a change in the man did take place too great and sudden to be attributed to the ordinary effect of advancing years; but when? The abrupt pause in his triumphant career as composer just mentioned, would seem to determine the time; and, if so, the natural inference is, that both were effects of the same cause. There was a point in the life of Handel when his indefatigable pen dropped from his hand and many weary months passed before he could resume it. The failure of his operas, his disastrous theatrical speculation, consequent bankruptcy, and the culmination of his distresses in a partial paralysis of his physical powers, were the causes. The cessation of Beethoven’s labors, though less absolute than in Handel’s case, is even more remarkable, as it continued longer and was not produced by any such natural and obvious causes. The fact is certain, and will probably find a sufficient explanation when we come to the details of the master’s private history during this period; if not, it is another question the solution of which must await the accident of time or the keener penetration and wider knowledge of some other investigator.

[Sidenote: FIRST PERFORMANCE OF THE “EGMONT” MUSIC]

Beethoven’s studies were now, for the third time, diverted from important works in hand to an order from the directors of the theatres--the “Egmont” music. The persevering diligence of the last months, of which he speaks in his letters, was evidently for the purpose of clearing his desk of a mass of manuscript compositions sold to Breitkopf and Härtel, before attacking Goethe’s tragedy--as decks are cleared for action before a naval battle. If so, he could hardly have seriously engaged upon the “Egmont” before the new year; but nothing is known, which fixes the exact date of either the beginning or completion of the work. Its overture bears the composer’s own date “1810”; its first performance was on the evening of Thursday, May 24. The ~Clärchen~ was played by Antonie Adamberger--a young actress alike distinguished for her beauty, her genius and her virtues--whose marriage in 1817 to the distinguished archæologist von Arneth was a distinct loss to the Vienna stage. The two songs which ~Clärchen~ has to sing, necessarily brought Fräulein Adamberger for the moment into personal relations with Beethoven, of which she wrote to the present author the following simple and pleasing account under date January 5, 1867:

... I approached him (Beethoven) without embarrassment when my aunt
of blessed memory, my teacher and benefactress, called me to her
room and presented me to him. To his question: “Can you sing?”
I replied without embarrassment with a decided “No!” Beethoven
regarded me with amazement and said laughingly: “No? But I am to
compose the songs in ‘Egmont’ for you.” I answered very simply
that I had sung only four months and had then ceased because of
hoarseness and the fear that continued exertion in the practice of
declamation might injure my voice. Then he said jovially with an
adoption of the Viennese dialect: “That will be a pretty how do you
do!”--but on his part it turned out to be something glorious.

We went to the pianoforte and rummaging around in my music ... he
found on top of the pile the well-known rondo with recitative from
Zingarelli’s “Romeo and Juliet.” “Do you sing ~that~?” he asked
with a laugh which shook him as he sat down hesitatingly to play
the accompaniment. Just as innocently and unsuspiciously as I had
chatted with him and laughed, I now reeled off the air. Then a
kind look came into his eye, he stroked my forehead with his hand
and said: “Very well, now I know”--came back in three days and
sang the songs for me a few times. After I had memorized them in a
few days he left me with the words: “There, that’s right. So, so
that’s the way, now sing thus, don’t let anybody persuade you to
do differently and see that you do not put a ~mortant~ in it.” He
went; I never saw him again in my room. Only at the rehearsal when
conducting he frequently nodded to me pleasantly and benevolently.
One of the old gentlemen expressed the opinion that the songs which
the master, counting on certain effects, had set for orchestra,
ought to be accompanied on a guitar. Then he turned his head most
comically and, with his eyes flaming, said, “He knows!”...

Long afterwards, in a Conversation Book, an unknown hand writes: “I remember still the torment you had with the kettledrums at the rehearsal of ‘Egmont’.” Nothing more is known of the history of this work. Beethoven’s name appears on both this year’s concerts for the Theatrical Poor Fund--March 25, with the first movements of the Fourth Symphony; April 17, with the “Coriolan” Overture; but it does not appear that he conducted on either occasion; it is, however, probable that he did conduct the rehearsals and performance of a symphony in Schuppanzigh’s first Augarten concert in May.

Add to the above the subsequent notices of a few songs and the Quartet, Op. 95, and the meagre history of Beethoven as ~composer~ for 1810 is exhausted; what remains is of purely private and personal nature. Kinsky’s active service in the campaign of 1809 and his subsequent duties in Bohemia had prevented him hitherto from discharging his obligations under the annuity contract; but the Archduke, perhaps Lobkowitz also, was promptly meeting his; and these payments, together with the honorable remuneration granted by Breitkopf and Härtel for manuscripts, supplied Beethoven with ample means for comfort, even for luxury. He had at this time no grounds for complaint upon that score.

It was in 1810 that Beethoven received from Clementi and Co. the long-deferred honorarium for the British copyrights bought in April, 1807. Exactly when this money was received by Beethoven cannot be determined from the existing evidence, but it seems to have been before February 4, 1810, on which date Beethoven wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel offering them the compositions from Op. 73 to 83 (exclusive of 75), and remarking that he was about to send the same works to London. He would scarcely have had such a purpose in mind unless he had had a settlement with his London publishers. Additional evidence, though of little weight, is provided by the circumstance that at the same time he was contemplating a change of lodgings, as a letter to Professor Loeb, written on February 8, shows; it was to his old home in the house of Baron Pasqualati, which he had occupied two years before and which he now took again at an annual rental of 500 florins.

[Sidenote: THOUGHTS HYMENEAL AND SARTORIAL]

A number of letters to Gleichenstein and Zmeskall to which attention must now be called seem to show us Beethoven in the character of a man so deeply smitten with the charms of a newly-acquired lady friend that he turns his attention seriously to his wardrobe and personal appearance and thinks unusually long and frequently of the social pleasures enjoyed at the home of his charmer. A desire to save space alone prevents the publication of the letters in full, but the reader may find them in the published Collections of the composer’s letters.[77] In the first of these he sends Gleichenstein 300 florins which the Count was to expend for him in the purchase of linen and nankeen for shirts and “at least half a dozen neckties.” On the same day, he informs his correspondent that acting on his advice he had paid Lind 300 florins. Henickstein had paid him twenty-seven and a half florins for a pound sterling and invited him and Gleichenstein to dine the next day with Clementi. Very significantly the letter ends with: “Greet everything that is dear to you and me. How gladly would I like to add ~to whom we are dear????~” Lind was a tailor and Henickstein the son of a banker. The next day he writes that on the previous evening the Archduke had requested his presence on the day set for the dinner and he had been obliged to send Henickstein a declination. The day after that he concludes a note telling about the meeting at the Archduke’s with “Farewell. This evening I will come to the dear Malfattis.” Here is the next letter in full:

As I shall have enough time this morning, I shall come to the
Savage (~zum wilden Mann~--a restaurant) in the Prater. I fancy
that I shall find no savages there but beautiful Graces, and for
them I must don my armor. I know you will not think me a sponge
because I come only for dinner, and so I will come straight. If I
find you at home, well and good; if not, I’ll hurry to the Prater
to embrace you.

On the day after that he sends Gleichenstein an S. (a sonata, doubtless) which he had “promised Therese” and adds: “Give my compliments to all of them. It seems as if the wounds with which wicked men have pierced my soul might be healed by them”; he sends 50 florins more for cravats and makes a boast of it that Gigons, Malfatti’s little dog, had supped with him and accompanied him home. This is the first of the only two allusions which Beethoven makes in all the papers, printed or written, relating to him, of a domestic pet animal. Another letter reads: “I beg of you to let me know when the M. remain at home of an evening. You surely had a pleasant sleep--I slept little, but I prefer such an awaking to all sleep.” Again he writes to say that he wished “Madame M.” would give him permission to pick out a pianoforte for her which she wished to buy “at Schanz’s.” Though it was his rule never to accept commissions on such sales, he wanted to save money for the lady on this purchase.

Now we reach the notes to Zmeskall, the first of which is endorsed by the recipient as having been received on April 18, 1810. From Beethoven’s lodgings in the Walfischgasse it was but a few steps around the corner in the Kärnthnerthorstrasse to an entrance of the Bürgerspital where Zmeskall lived, of whose readiness to oblige him he could and did avail himself to an extent which at length excited misgivings in his own mind that he was really going too far and abusing his friend’s kindness. This time Beethoven’s want was of a very peculiar nature, namely a looking-glass; that it was not for shaving purposes but for a more general control of his toilet is indicated by the second note:

(April 18, 1810.)

Dear Zmeskall do send me your looking-glass which hangs beside your
window for a few hours, mine is broken, if you would be so kind as
to buy me one like it to-day it would be a great favor, I’ll recoup
you for your expenditure at once--forgive my importunity dear Z.

Dear Z. do not get angry at my little note--think of the situation
which I am in, like Hercules once at Queen Omphale’s??? I asked
you to buy me a looking-glass like yours, and beg you as soon as
you are not using yours which I am returning to send it back to
me for mine is broken--farewell and don’t again write to me about
the great man--for I never felt the strength or weakness of human
nature as I feel it just now.

Remain fond of me.

(Without date--the original in Boston.)

Do not get vexed, dear Z. because of my continued demands upon
you--let me know how much you paid for the looking-glass?

Farewell we shall see each other soon in the Swan as the food is
daily growing worse in the (illegible)--I have had another violent
attack of colic since day before yesterday, but it is better to-day.

Your friend

Beethoven.

[Sidenote: INTERCOURSE WITH THE MALFATTI FAMILY]

The date of the first note (April 18) is important as showing that at the time Beethoven was not in the country but still in Vienna and that, consequently, the 8th mentioned in the letter to Therese Malfatti which follows, was not the 8th of April, but of May. From this letter we deduce that Beethoven’s intercourse with the Malfatti family in Vienna had become more animated and intimate, that Beethoven improvised at the pianoforte and that at the punchbowl his spirits rose rather high (“forget the nonsense”). The conclusion points pretty plainly towards a desire to be united with the family in closer bonds. The Malfattis had probably gone to their country home towards the end of April or beginning of May. The following letter to Gleichenstein was probably written on the day after the merry evening of which the letter to Therese speaks:

Your report plunged me from the regions of happiness into the
depths. Why the adjunction, You would let me know when there would
be another musicale, am I nothing more than your musician or
that of the others?--that at least is the interpretation, I can
therefore seek support only in my own breast, there is none for me
outside of it; no, nothing but wounds has friendship and kindred
feelings for me. So be it then, for you, poor B. there is no
happiness in the outer world, you must create it in yourself, only
in the world of ideality will you find friends.

I beg of you to set my mind at rest as to whether I was guilty of
any impropriety yesterday, or if you cannot do that then tell me
the truth, I hear it as willingly as I speak it--there is still
time, the truth may yet help me. Farewell--don’t let your only
friend Dorner know anything of this.

The letter to Therese reads:

With this you are receiving, honored Therese, what I promised,
and if there were not the best of reasons against it, you would
receive more in order to show that I always do more for my friends
than I promise--I hope and have no doubt that you keep yourself
as well occupied as pleasantly entertained--but not so much that
you cannot also think of me. It would perhaps be presuming upon
your kindness or placing too high a value upon myself if I were to
write you: “people are only together when they are in each other’s
company, even the distant one, the absent one lives for us,” who
would dare to write such a sentiment to the volatile T. who handles
everything in this world so lightly? Do not forget, in laying out
your occupation, the pianoforte, or music generally; you have so
beautiful a talent for it, why not cultivate it exclusively, you
who have so much feeling for everything that is beautiful and good,
why will you not make use of it in order to learn the more perfect
things in so beautiful an art, which always reflects its light
upon us--I live very solitarily and quietly, although now and then
lights try to arouse me there is still for me a void which cannot
be filled since you are all gone and which defies even my art which
has always been so faithful to me--your pianoforte is ordered and
you will have it soon--explain for yourself the difference between
the treatment of a theme which I invented one evening and the
manner in which I finally wrote it down, but don’t get the punch
to help you--how lucky you were to be able to go to the country so
soon, I shall not have this pleasure until the 8th, I rejoice in
the prospect like a child, how joyous I am when I can walk amongst
bushes and trees, herbs, rocks, nobody can love the country as I
do--since woods, trees, rocks, return the answer which man wants to
hear.

(Four lines stricken out).

You will soon receive four of my compositions whereat you should
not have to complain too much about the difficulties--have you read
Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister,” Shakespeare translated by Schlegel, one
has so much leisure in the country it might be agreeable if I were
to send you these works. Chance has brought it about that I have
an acquaintance in your neighborhood, perhaps you will see me at
your home early some morning for half an hour and then away, you
see I wish to be as little tedious as possible. Commend me to the
good will of your father, your mother, although I have no right as
yet to ask it of them, also to your aunt M. Farewell, honored T. I
wish you all that is good and beautiful in life, think of me and
willingly--forget the nonsense--be convinced no one can wish that
your life may be more joyous and more happy than I, even if you
have no sympathy for

Your devoted servant and friend

Beethoven.

N. B. It would really be very nice of you if you were to write a
few lines to say what I can do for you here?

[Sidenote: PREPARATIONS FOR MARRIAGE]

Under such circumstances Beethoven wrote the famous letter of May 2, 1810 to Wegeler in Coblenz, asking him to procure a copy of his baptismal certificate for him. In this letter he says:

A few years ago my quiet, retired mode of life ceased, and I was
forcibly drawn into activities of the world; I have not yet formed
a favorable opinion of it but rather one against it--but who is
there could escape the influence of the external storms? Yet I
should be happy, perhaps one of the happiest of men, if the demon
had not taken possession of my ears. If I had not read somewhere
that a man may not voluntarily part with his life so long as a good
deed remains for him to perform, I should long ago have been no
more--and indeed by my own hands. O, life is so beautiful, but to
me it is poisoned.

You will not decline to accede to my friendly request if I beg of
you to secure my baptismal certificate for me. Whatever expense
may attach to the matter, since you have an account with Steffen
Breuning, you can recoup yourself at once from that source and I
will make it good at once to Steffen here. If you should yourself
think it worth while to investigate the matter and make the trip
from Coblenz to Bonn, charge everything to me. But one thing must
be borne in mind, namely, that ~there was a brother born before~
I was, who was also named Ludwig with the addition Maria, but
who died. To fix my age beyond doubt, this brother must first be
found, inasmuch as I already know that in this respect a mistake
has been made by others, and I have been said to be older than I
am. Unfortunately I myself lived for a time without knowing my age.
I had a family register but it has been lost heaven knows how.
Therefore do not be bored if I urge you to attend to this matter,
to find Maria and the present Ludwig who was born after him. The
sooner you send me the baptismal certificate the greater will be my
obligation.

To the “Notizen” (1838) Wegeler published a few pages of appendix on the occasion of the Beethoven festival at Bonn (1845), giving therein a most valuable paragraph explanatory of this important letter:

It seems that Beethoven, once in his life, entertained the idea
of marrying, after having been in love many times, as is related
in the “Notizen” (pp. 40, 42 ~et seq.~ and 117 ~et seq.~). Many
persons as well as myself were impressed by the urgency with
which in his letter of May 10 [~sic~] he besought me to secure
his baptismal certificate for him. He wants to pay all the
expenditures, even a journey from Coblenz to Bonn. And then he adds
explicit instructions which I was to observe in looking up the
certificate in order to get the right one. I found the solution
of the riddle in a letter written to me three months later by
my brother-in-law St. v. Breuning. In this he says: “Beethoven
tells me at least once a week that he intends to write to you;
but I believe his marriage project has fallen through, and for
this reason he no longer feels the lively desire to thank you for
your trouble in getting him the baptismal certificate.” In the
thirty-ninth year of his life Beethoven had not given up thoughts
of marriage.

We know now that the marriage project fell through early in May, soon after he had written the letter to Wegeler. Two short letters to Gleichenstein instruct us slightly touching the conclusion of this psychological drama which, no doubt, tore the heart of Beethoven. It would seem as if at first Beethoven wanted to visit the Malfattis at their country home, but at the last preferred to send a formal proposal of marriage by the hands of Gleichenstein. We have no testimony concerning the refusal beyond the utterance of the niece and the cessation of all correspondence on the subject. Here are the letters:

You are living on a calm and peaceful sea or, possibly, are
already in a safe harbor--you do not feel the distress of the
friend who is still in the storm--or you dare not feel it--what
will they think of me in the star Venus Urania, how will they
judge me without seeing me--my pride is so humbled, I would go
there with you uninvited--let me see you at my lodging to-morrow
morning, I shall expect you at about 9 o’clock at breakfast--Dorner
can come with you at another time--if you were but franker with
me, you are certainly concealing something from me, you want
to spare me and this uncertainty is more painful than the most
fatal certainty--Farewell if you cannot come let me know in
advance--think and act for me--I cannot entrust to paper more of
what is going on within me.

Dear friend, so cursedly late--press them all warmly to your
heart--why can I not be with you? Farewell, I will be with you on
Wednesday morning--the letter is written so that the whole world
may read it--if you find that the paper covering is not clean
enough, put another one on, I cannot tell at night whether it is
clean--farewell, dear friend, think and act also for your faithful
friend.

Beethoven’s relations with another fair friend now demand attention. In the Vienna suburban road Erdbeergasse stands the lofty house then numbered 98, its rear windows overlooking Rasoumowsky’s gardens, the Donau canal and the Prater, whence on May 15, 1810, Elizabeth Brentano (Bettina) wrote to Goethe:

Here I live in the house of the deceased Birkenstock, surrounded
by two thousand copperplate engravings, as many hand-drawings,
as many hundred old ash urns and Etruscan lamps, marble vases,
antique fragments of hands and feet, paintings, Chinese garments,
coins, geological collections, sea insects, telescopes and
numberless maps, plans of ancient empires and cities sunk in ruin,
artistically carved walking-sticks, precious documents, and finally
the sword of Emperor Carolus.

Joseph Melchior von Birkenstock (born in 1738), the honored, trusted and valued servant of Maria Theresia and Kaiser Joseph, the friend and brother-in-law of the celebrated Sonnenfels--the esteemed correspondent of so many of the noblest men of his time, including the American philosopher Franklin and the Scotch historian Robertson, the reformer of the Austrian school system, the promoter of all liberal ideas so long as in those days progress was allowed--was pensioned in 1803, and thenceforth lived for science, art and literature until his death, October 30, 1809. His house, filled almost to repletion with the artistic, archæological, scientific collections of which Bettina speaks, was one of those truly noble seats of learning, high culture and refinement, where Beethoven, to his manifest intellectual gain, was a welcome guest.

[Sidenote: INTIMATE RELATIONS WITH THE BRENTANOS]

Sophie Brentano, older than Bettina, very beautiful notwithstanding the loss of an eye, and, like all the members of that remarkable family, very highly talented and accomplished, had made a long visit to Vienna as Count Heberstein’s bride--their marriage being prevented by her untimely death. “She brought about the marriage of her brother Franz with Antonie von Birkenstock,” says Jahn. “The young wife, who did not feel at home in Frankfort”--and also because of the precarious health of her father, we may add--“persuaded Brentano to remove to Vienna, where for several years she occupied a home in the Birkenstock house which Bettina describes so beautifully. In this house, where music was cultivated, Beethoven came and went in friendly fashion. His ‘little friend,’ for whose encouragement in pianoforte playing he wrote the little trio in a single movement in 1812, was her daughter Maximiliane Brentano, later Madame Plittersdorf, to whom ten years later he dedicated the Sonata in E major (Op. 109). After Birkenstock’s death he tried to give a practical turn to his friendship by seeking to persuade Archduke Rudolph to buy a part of his collection. More effective, evidently was the help which Brentano extended to him, who, when he came into financial straits and needed a loan, always found an open purse. Madame Antonie Brentano was frequently ill for weeks at a time during her sojourn in Vienna, so that she had to remain in her room inaccessible to all visitors. At such times Beethoven used to come regularly, seat himself at a pianoforte in her anteroom without a word and improvise; after he had finished ‘telling her everything and bringing comfort,’ in his language, he would go as he had come without taking notice of another person.”

The credibility of Madame von Arnim’s contribution to Beethoven literature has been questioned in all degrees of severity, from simple doubts as to particular passages to broad denunciation of the whole as gross distortions of fact, or even as figments of the imagination. Dogmatism is rarely in proportion to knowledge, unless, perhaps, in inverse ratio. The bitterest attacks upon the veracity of Mme. von Arnim have been made by those whose ignorance of the subject is most conspicuous; but among the doubters are people of candor, good judgment and wide knowledge of Beethoven’s history; and a decent respect for the opinions of such renders it just and proper to explain why so much of these contributions has been admitted into the text as being substantially true.

At the very outset we are met by a statement in Schindler’s book (Ed. 1840) which if correct destroys at once the credibility of Mme. von Arnim’s account of her first interview with Beethoven. It is this: “Beethoven became acquainted with the Brentano family in Frankfort through her [Bettina].” A later writer, Ludwig Nohl, supports the assertion on the authority of “Frau Brentano, now 87 years old”--Birkenstock’s daughter. But Schindler, after his long residence in and near Frankfort, writes (1860): “There still lives one of the oldest friends of our master during life, with whom he became acquainted already on his arrival in Vienna (1792) in the house of her father.” This was the above-mentioned lady “now 87 years old.” The other writer also withdraws his statement in a later publication where he speaks of this aged lady’s daughter, “Maxe, who as a child in 1808 [?] in Vienna, often sat at Birkenstock’s on his (Beethoven’s) knees.”

Any possible doubt on the subject is dispelled by a communication made to this author in 1872, by the then head of the Brentano family living in Frankfort, who wrote:

The friendly relations between Beethoven and the family Brentano in
Frankfort already existed when Frau von Brentano (Antonie) visited
her father in Vienna, whither she went with her older children
for an extended period because her father, Court Councillor
Birkenstock, had been ailing for a considerable time. This friendly
intercourse was continued after the death of Councillor Birkenstock
on October 30, 1809, and during the three years’ sojourn of the
Brentano family in Vienna. Beethoven often came to the house of
Birkenstock, later of Brentano, attended the quartet concerts
which were given there by the best musicians of Vienna, and often
rejoiced his friends with his glorious pianoforte playing. The
Brentano children occasionally carried fruit and flowers to him in
his lodging; he in return gave them bonbons and always exhibited
great friendship for them.

[Sidenote: MME. VON ARNIM’S LETTER TO GOETHE]

Beethoven, through his familiar intercourse with the Brentanos, must, of course, have known of the expected visit of Bettina and of her relations to Goethe. Her account of their first meeting, therefore, is in all respects credible; nor has it been, so far as is known, questioned. It is twice given by her own pen in the “Briefwechsel” with Goethe under date 1810, and in the Pückler-Muskau correspondence as belonging to 1832. At this last-named date she had not yet received from Chancellor von Müller her letter to Goethe, and wrote from memory, confining her narrative to the minor incidents of the meeting. The two accounts differ, but they do not contradict, they only supplement each other.

[Sidenote: AUTHENTICITY OF THE BETTINA LETTERS]

The present writer had the honor of an interview or two with Mme. von Arnim in 1849-50, and heard the story from her lips; in 1854-5, it was his good fortune to meet her often in two charming family circles--her own and that of the brothers Grimm. Thus at an interval of five years he had the opportunity of comparing her statements, of questioning her freely and of convincing himself, up to this point, of her simple honesty and truth.

But the rock of offense does not lie here; it is in the long discourse of Beethoven which will presently be given in these pages. Schindler objects to this, both in its matter and form, on the ground that he had never heard “the master” talk in this manner. But the Beethoven whom Schindler knew in his last years was not the Beethoven of 1810, and Anton Schindler certainly was not an Elizabeth Brentano. There happens to be proof that just in the former period the composer could talk freely and eloquently. Jahn says: “Beethoven’s personality and nature, moreover, were calculated to make a significant but winning impression upon women,” and cites Mme. Hummel (Elizabeth Röckel) in proof. “As a matron advanced in years,” says he, “and still winning because of her charming graciousness, she spoke with ingratiating warmth of the good fortune of having been observed by Beethoven and to have been on friendly relations with him. ‘Whoever saw him in good humor, intellectually animated, when he gave utterance to his thoughts in such a mood,’ said she with glowing eyes, ‘can never forget the impression which he made.’”

There are two hypotheses as to the genesis of this letter to Goethe. The one: that Mme. von Arnim in preparing the “Briefwechsel” for publication wrote out her own crude and nebulous thoughts and gave them to the public in the form of a fictitious report of a conversation of Beethoven. The other: that she found Beethoven fresh from the composition of the “Egmont” music, full of enthusiasm for Goethe and vehemently desirous that his, the great composer’s, views upon music should be known and comprehended by the great poet; that he, happening to get upon this topic at their first interview, imparted those views to her with that express purpose; and that she, so far as she was able to follow and understand the speaker, and so far as her memory could recall his words a few hours after, correctly records and reports them.

The first hypothesis rests now on precisely the same foundation as when Schindler wrote, namely, on the presumption that Beethoven could not have spoken thus; but a discourse uttered under such circumstances and with such a purpose, poured into the willing ear of a beautiful, highly cultivated and remarkably fascinating young woman, one who possessed the higher artistic and intellectual qualities of character in an extraordinary degree--such a discourse might well abound in thoughts and expressions which the prosaic Schindler in the most prosaic period of his master’s life never drew from him.

Two significant minor points may be noted: there was a Latin word in use by the Breuning family in the old Bonn days with a meaning not given in the dictionaries. This we learn from Wegeler’s “Notizen,” and ~only~ there. Yet Mme. v. Arnim puts this word, ~raptus~, in precisely this local sense into Beethoven’s mouth several years before the publication of the “Notizen”! Again: when the discoveries of Galvani and Volta were still a novel topic of general interest, when, through them, physiologists, as Dubois-Raymond expressed it, “believed that at length they should realize their visions of a vital power”; and when the semi-scientific world was full of the theories of Mesmer and his disciples--at that time, the first years of the nineteenth century, custom gave the word ~elektrisch~ (electrical) a significance long since lost, which well conveyed the thought Beethoven is made to express. But in 1834-5, to introduce this word in that sense, retrospectively, into a fictitious conversation purporting to be of the year 1810, shows, no less than the ~raptus~, an exquisite tact so rare, that it might well be termed a most felicitous stroke of genius, one of which any writer of romance might be vain.

Julius Merz, in his “Athenæum für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben” (Nuremberg, January, 1839), printed for the opening article “Drei Briefe von Beethoven an Bettina.” The third of these letters was copied the next July into Schilling’s ephemeral musical periodical the “Jahrbücher” (Carlsruhe), with remarks by the editor expressing doubts of its authenticity. But Schindler, whose book was just then going to press, copied a large portion of it as genuine; and in his second edition (1845) reprinted all three entire, without adding a word of doubt or misgiving. They had appeared in English in 1841, from a copy given to Mr. Henry F. Chorley by Mme. von Arnim; and since then have been reprinted in various languages probably more frequently, and become more universally known, than any other chapter in Beethoven literature. Here and there a reader shared in Schilling’s doubts; but twenty years elapsed before these doubts were put into such form, and by an author of such position, that a reasonable self-respect could allow Mme. von Arnim to take notice of them; and then it was too late--she lay upon her death-bed. Her silence under the attacks made upon her veracity is therefore no evidence against her.

A. B. Marx, the author here referred to, produces but one argument which demands notice here, and this is the occurrence of certain “repetitions”: “liebe, liebste,” “liebe, gute,” “bald, bald” which he declared to be “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian.” Now, on the contrary, in the text of this volume there is abundant proof that just these expressions are very Beethovenian and characteristic of his letters to favorite women at the precise period in question.

It is true, as he says, that when Marx wrote, nothing of the kind had ever been published; ~a fortiori~, nothing twenty years before; but this fact, on which he laid such stress, instead of supporting really demolishes his argument. It was in the autumn of 1838 that Mr. Merz received the letters. At that time specimens of Beethoven’s correspondence had been published by Seyfried in the pseudo-“Studien,” by Schumann in the “Neue Zeitschrift,” by Gottfried Weber in the “Cäcilia,” by Wegeler in the “Notizen”; and a few others were scattered in books and periodicals. Imitators, counterfeiters, fabricators of false documents, must have samples, patterns, models; but all the Beethoven letters then in print were so far from being the patterns or models of the Bettina letters that the contrast between them was the main argument against the authenticity of the latter. If, then, Mme. von Arnim introduced so many expressions which we know (but she could not) are ~not~ “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian” into a fictitious correspondence, she did so not only without a pattern or model, but against ~all~ patterns and models. ~Credat Judæeus Apella, non ego.~

There are points of doubt and difficulty in the third letter which the warmest advocates of its authenticity have not been able fully to overcome; but as Marx had not sufficient knowledge of his subject to perceive them, and the question of the acceptance or rejection of this letter will rest upon grounds to be given in the text, these points need not be noticed here. Another one must be, namely: suppose that letter should be proved counterfeit, does it follow that the others are so? Not at all; but that they are the authentic letters whose manner and style are imitated.

In 1848, Mme. von Arnim published two volumes of characteristic correspondence with Herr Nathusius under the title: “Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia.” In one of his letters ~Pamphilius~ requests autographs of Goethe’s mother and Beethoven, for a collection which he is making. This gives her occasion in various letters to express her admiration and reverence for the composer in terms which come warm from the heart. At length (Vol. II, p. 205) she writes: “Herewith I am sending you the letters of Goethe and Beethoven for your autograph collection.” She prints all three in the pages following; but a comparison of the several passages relating to them leads to the inference, that only one autograph was sent. Is all this a mystification? Was there no ~Pamphilius~? No autograph collection? No contribution of a letter in Beethoven’s hand to it? Herr Nathusius knows.

Mme. von Arnim, then, gave the letters to the public three times; in the “Athenæum,” January, 1839; in English translation, through Chorley, 1841; in the “Pamphilius und Ambrosia,” in 1848. It is patent to the feeblest common sense, that, if not genuine, either the same copy, or copies carefully collated so as to avoid all suspicious variations, would have been sent to the printer; and that the two German publications would differ only by such small errors as compositors make and proof-readers overlook--such as are found in Schindler’s reprint from the “Athenæum,” and in Marx’s from Schindler. But the variations of the “Pamphilius” copy from that in the “Athenæum” are such as cannot be printer’s errors, but precisely such as two persons, inexperienced in the task, would make in deciphering Beethoven’s very illegible writing; one (Mr. Merz) correcting the punctuation and faults in the use of capital letters (as Wegeler has evidently done), and the other (Mme. von Arnim) retaining these striking characteristics of the composer’s letters. The change of the familiar “Bettine,” which Beethoven learned in her brother’s family, to the more formal “Freundin,” can hardly be made a point of objection. Marx’s argument had been so completely upset, that, in renewing (1863) his attack upon the then deceased Mme. von Arnim, he was compelled to base it upon other considerations. It was then that the present writer compared the letters printed in the “Athenæum” with the copies in the “Pamphilius,” which convinced him, on the grounds above noted, of their authenticity, at least in part, and led to a correspondence, of which an abstract here follows: On July 9, 1863, the present author requested Mr. Wheeler, American Consul at Nuremberg, to see Mr. Merz, learn from him the circumstances under which he obtained the letters, and whether he printed from Beethoven’s autograph. Mr. Wheeler replied on August 9th: “He [Mr. Merz] states, that he enjoyed the personal acquaintance of that lady (Mme. von Arnim), and was at the time in Berlin on a visit; and being at her residence on a certain occasion, she gave him these letters, remarking: ‘There is something for the Athenæum.’ After publishing the letters, Mr. Merz feels confident, he returned the letters to Mme. v. Arnim.” The author now, on August 25th, requested Mr. Wheeler if possible to obtain from Mr. Merz his written statement that he had printed the letters from the original autographs. Mr. Wheeler, on September 24th, replied.... “Yesterday he [Merz] was good enough to write me the note you requested; I trust it may be found of the tenor wished.” The note which was enclosed in this letter is this: “I can certify that at the time in question I had in my possession the letters referred to in the January number of the ‘Athenæum,’ but gave them back again. Nuremberg, September 23, 1863. Julius Merz, book publisher.” It may be said that this note does not explicitly cover the whole ground. True, it is the testimony of a conscientious man who, after the lapse of twenty-five years, remembers deciphering certain letters of Beethoven which he printed, but does not venture to declare that ~all~ that he printed lay before him in the handwriting of the master. There is another witness who is reported to have been less distrustful of his memory. Herr Ludwig Nohl, in a note to these letters (“Briefe Beethoven’s,” p. 71), says: “Their authenticity (barring, perhaps, a few words in the middle of the third letter) was never doubtful in my mind and will not be now after Beethoven’s letters have been made public. Though superfluous, it may yet be said for the benefit of such as are not wholly willing to accept internal evidence, that Prof. Moriz Carriere, in a conversation on the subject of Beethoven’s letters in December, 1864, expressly stated that the three letters to Bettina were genuine; he saw them himself in her house in Berlin in 1839, read them through with the greatest interest and care, and because of their significant contents had urged their immediate publication. When they were printed a short time afterward, no changes in the reprint struck his attention; on the contrary, he could still remember that the much controverted terms, particularly the anecdote about Goethe in the third letter, were precisely so in the original.”

[Sidenote: FIRST MEETING WITH BETTINA]

And now to the matter, the discussion of which has detained us so long. One day in May, Beethoven, sitting at the pianoforte with a song just composed before him, was surprised by a pair of hands being placed upon his shoulders. He looked up “gloomily” but his face brightened as he saw a beautiful young woman who, putting her mouth to his ear said: “My name is Brentano.” She needed no further introduction. He smiled, gave her his hand without rising and said: “I have just made a beautiful song for you; do you want to hear it?” Thereupon he sang--raspingly, incisively, not gently or sweetly (the voice was hard), but transcending training and agreeableness by reason of the cry of passion which reacted on the hearer--“Kennst du das Land?” He asked: “Well, how do you like it?” She nodded. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically, “marvellously beautiful; I’ll sing it again.” He sang it again, looked at her with a triumphant expression, and seeing her cheeks and eyes glow, rejoiced over her happy approval. “Aha!” said he, “most people are touched by a good thing; but they are not artist-natures. Artists are fiery; they do not weep.” He then sang another song of Goethe’s, “Trocknet nicht Thränen der ewigen Liebe.”

There was a large dinner party that day at Franz Brentano’s in the Birkenstock house and Bettina--for it was she--told Beethoven he must change his old coat for a better, and accompany her thither. “Oh,” said he jokingly, “I have several good coats,” and took her to the wardrobe to see them. Changing his coat he went down with her to the street, but stopped there and said he must return for a moment. He came down again laughing with the old coat on. She remonstrated; he went up again, dressed himself properly and went with her.[78] But, notwithstanding his rather clumsy drollery, she soon discovered a greatness in the man for which she was wholly unprepared. His genius burst upon her with a splendor of which she had formed no previous conception, and the sudden revelation astonished, dazzled, enraptured her. It is just this, which gives the tone to her letter upon Beethoven addressed to Goethe. In fact, the Beethoven of ~our~ conceptions was not then known; the first attempt to describe or convey in words, what the finer appreciative spirits had begun to feel in his music, was E. T. A. Hoffmann’s article on the C minor Symphony, in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of July 21st--five weeks later.

[Sidenote: BETTINA’S LETTER TO GOETHE]

The essential parts of Bettina’s long communication are these:

(To Goethe) Vienna, May 28.

When I saw him of whom I shall now speak to you, I forgot the
whole world--as the world still vanishes when memory recalls the
scene--yes, it vanishes.... It is Beethoven of whom I now wish to
tell you, and who made me forget the world and you; I am still in
my nonage, it is true, but I am not mistaken when I say--what no
one, perhaps, now understands and believes--he stalks far ahead
of the culture of mankind. Shall we ever overtake him?--I doubt
it, but grant that he may live until the mighty and exalted enigma
lying in his soul is fully developed, may reach its loftiest goal,
then surely he will place the key to his heavenly knowledge in
our hands so that we may be advanced another step towards true
happiness.

To you, I am sure, I may confess I believe in a divine magic
which is the essence of intellectual life. This magic Beethoven
practises in his art. Everything that he can tell you about is pure
magic, every posture is the organization of a higher existence,
and therefore Beethoven feels himself to be the founder of a new
sensuous basis in the intellectual life; you will understand
what I am trying to say and how much of it is true. Who could
replace this mind for us? From whom could we expect so much? All
human activities toss around him like mechanism, he alone begets
independently in himself the unsuspected, uncreated. What to him is
intercourse with the world--to him who is at his sacred daily task
before sunrise and who after sunset scarcely looks about him, who
forgets sustenance for his body and who is carried in a trice, by
the stream of his enthusiasm, past the shores of work-a-day things?

He himself said: “When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see
is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which
does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom
and philosophy, the wine which inspires one to new generative
processes, and I am the Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine
for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. When they are again
become sober they have drawn from the sea all that they brought
with them, all that they can bring with them to dry land. I have
not a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is
nearer to me than to other artists; I associate with him without
fear; I have always recognized and understood him and have no fear
for my music--it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it
must be freed by it from all the miseries which the others drag
about with themselves.”

All this Beethoven said to me the first time I saw him; a feeling
of reverential awe came over me when he expressed himself to me
with such friendly frankness, seeing that I must have appeared
so utterly insignificant to him. I was surprised, too, for I had
been told that he was unsociable and would converse with nobody.
They were afraid to take me to him; I had to hunt him up alone. He
has three lodgings in which he conceals himself alternately--one
in the country, one in the city and the third on the bastion. It
was in the last that I found him in the third storey, walked in
unannounced. He was seated at the pianoforte.

He accompanied me home and on the way he said the many beautiful
things about art, speaking so loud and stopping in the street that
it took courage to listen to him. He spoke with great earnestness
and much too surprisingly not to make me forget the street.
They were greatly surprised to see him enter a large dinner
party at home with me. After dinner, without being asked, he sat
down to the instrument and played long and marvellously; there
was a simultaneous fermentation of his pride and his genius.
When he is in such a state of exaltation his spirit begets the
incomprehensible and his fingers accomplish the impossible.

In the letter to Pückler-Muskau in which Mme. von Arnim dwells more upon the incidents of this meeting, she writes thus:

There was surprise when I entered a gathering of more than 40
people who sat at table, hand in hand with Beethoven. Without ado
he seated himself, said little (doubtless because he was deaf).
Twice he took his writing-tablet out of his pocket and made a few
marks in it. After dinner the entire company went up to the tower
of the house to look at the view; when they were gone down again
and he and I alone, he drew forth his tablet, looked at it, wrote
and elided, then said: “My song is finished.” He leaned against
the window-frame and sang it out upon the air. Then he said: “That
sounds, doesn’t it? It belongs to you if you like it, I made it
for you, you inspired it, I read it in your eyes just as it was
written.”

In the Goethe letter she continues:

Since then he comes to me every day, or I go to him. For this I
neglect social meetings, galleries, the theatre, and even the tower
of St. Stephen’s. Beethoven says “Ah! What do you want to see
there? I will call for you towards evening; we will walk through
the alleys of Schönbrunn.” Yesterday I went with him to a glorious
garden in full bloom, all the hot-beds open--the perfume was
bewildering; Beethoven stopped in the oppressive sunshine and said:
“Not only because of their contents, but also because of their
rhythm, Goethe’s poems have great power over me, I am tuned up and
stimulated to composition by this language which builds itself into
higher orders as if through the work of spirits and already bears
in itself the mystery of the harmonies.