Written in the autograph book of his friend, Lenz von Breuning, in
1797.)

7. "When I open my eyes, a sigh involuntarily escapes me, for all that I
see runs counter to my religion; perforce I despise the world which does
not intuitively feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom
and philosophy."

(Remark made to Bettina von Arnim, in 1810, concerning Viennese society.
Report in a letter by Bettina to Goethe on May 28, 1810.)

8. "Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this
great goddess?"

(August 11, 1810, to Bettina von Arnim.)

9. "In the country I know no lovelier delight than quartet music."

(To Archduke Rudolph, in a letter addressed to Baden on July 24, 1813.)

10. "Nothing but art, cut to form like old-fashioned hoop-skirts. I
never feel entirely well except when I am among scenes of unspoiled
nature."

(September 24, 1826, to Breuning, while promenading with Breuning's
family in the Schonbrunner Garden, after calling attention to the alleys
of trees "trimmed like walls, in the French manner.")

11. "Nature knows no quiescence; and true art walks with her hand
in hand; her sister--from whom heaven forefend us!--is called
artificiality."

(From notes in the lesson book of Archduke Rudolph, following some
remarks on the expansion of the expressive capacity of music.)

LOVE OF NATURE

Beethoven was a true son of the Rhine in his love for nature. As a boy
he had taken extended trips, sometimes occupying days, with his father
"through the Rhenish localities ever lastingly dear to me." In his days
of physical health Nature was his instructress in art; "I may not come
without my banner," he used to say when he set out upon his wanderings
even in his latest years, and never without his note books. In the
scenes of nature he found his marvelous motives and themes; brook, birds
and tree sang to him. In a few special cases he has himself recorded the
fact.

But when he was excluded more and more from communion with his fellow
men because of his increasing deafness, until, finally, he could
communicate only by writing with others (hence the conversation-books,
which will be cited often in this little volume), he fled for refuge to
nature. Out in the woods he again became naively happy; to him the woods
were a Holy of Holies, a Home of the Mysteries. Forest and mountain-vale
heard his sighs; there he unburdened his hea