part, a phantasmagoria, wherein persons and events continually changed
from grotesque to sublime, where nothing was stable or to be depended
upon. The only reality was in his art. The consciousness that he was
composing works that would go down the ages and delight many generations
to come, was probably satisfaction enough to him to compensate him for
anything he was called on to endure. With the progress of his deafness
his inability to cope with even the ordinary affairs of life increased,
and this also had the effect of withdrawing him from the world. The
spiritual insight gained by years of introspection, of communion with
the higher part of his nature enabled him to discover truths hidden to
the consciousness of the ordinary man. "That power of shaping the
incomprehensible now grows with him; the joy in exercising this power
becomes humor. All the pain of existence is wrecked upon the immense
pleasure derived from the play with it; the creator of worlds, Brahma,
laughs to himself as he perceives the illusion with reference to
himself; regained innocence plays jestingly with the thorns of expiated
guilt; the emancipated conscience banters itself with the torments it
has undergone. And all his seeing and his fashioning is steeped in that
marvellous gayety (_Heiterkeit_) which music first acquired through
him." (Wagner.)

A peculiarity of Beethoven's work often commented on, is the extreme
simplicity of his themes as they first appear in his sketch-books. These
are usually elaborated, thus changing their character, taking on new
meaning with the growth and development of the idea in the composer's
mind; when through with it, however, the thought appears fresh and
spontaneous, such was his consummate art, as if it had never undergone
any elaboration. But sometimes the theme maintains its original
simplicity, and the masterwork appears in the orchestration which
surrounds it; at times even this maintains an archaic simplicity. Thus
in the coda of the vivace of the Seventh Symphony, a simple melody is
reiterated eleven times in succession, with no other orchestration than
the pedal-point on E by the rest of the instruments.

The symphonies in general are the language of a buoyant, gay, blithesome
mood, as befits their design for concert use. In them, for the most
part, he addresses people in their holiday humor. His experience with
Fidelio may have impressed the fact upon his mind that sorrow and pain
should be sparingl