harmonic Society had the honour of ministering to the necessities of his last illness. The generous eagerness with which they sent all that his friendly attendants asked, and offered more whenever called for, was most grateful to Beethoven’s heart, which had in those last days been frozen by such ingratitude. It roused his sinking life to one last leap of flame; his latest days were passed in revolving a great work which he wished to compose for the society, and which those about him thought would, if finished, have surpassed all he had done before.
No doubt, if his situation had been known in Germany, his country would have claimed a similar feeling from him. For she was not to him a step-dame; and, though in his last days taken up with newer wonders, would not, had his name been spoken, have failed to listen and to answer.
Yet a few more interesting passages. He rose before daybreak both in winter and summer, and worked till two or three o’clock, rarely after. He would never correct, to him the hardest task, as, like all great geniuses, he was indefatigable in the use of the file, in the evening. Often in the midst of his work he would run out into the free air for half an hour or more, and return laden with new thoughts. When he felt this impulse he paid no regard to the weather.
Plato and Shakspeare were his favourite authors; especially he was fond of reading Plato’s Republic. He read the Greek and Roman classics much, but in translations, for his education, out of his art, was limited. He also went almost daily to coffeehouses, where he read the newspapers, going in and out by the back door. If he found he excited observation, he changed his haunt.
“He tore without ceremony a composition submitted to him by the great Hummel, which he thought bad. Moscheles, dreading a similar fate for one of his which was to pass under his criticism, wrote at the bottom of the last page, ‘Finis. With the help of God.’ Beethoven wrote beneath, ‘Man, help thyself.’”
