e master was in, as
they heard him singing and occasionally striking a chord on the piano.
Finding the door unlocked, they entered and went in search of him,
finally discovering him in an inner room. He was in extreme dishabille,
busily noting down his thoughts on the plastered wall. He had probably
intended changing his clothes, and, while disrobing, these thoughts came
crowding in on him to the exclusion of everything else. Beethoven,
facing the wall with his back to the visitors, was unaware of their
proximity, and they left without being discovered by him, as they did
not wish to interfere with his work. This was probably in the year 1826,
as Beethoven remained in Vienna all that summer, actively engaged on the
great C sharp minor quartet. It may have been a part of this work which
was thus produced.

Friederich Stark relates an incident that illustrates his abstraction.
He called on Beethoven early one morning, and, being a friend, was given
the privilege of looking him up. He went from room to room, and finally
found him in his bedroom. He was just beginning to dress, his face
thickly lathered with soap that had been put on the previous evening and
had dried there; he had prepared to shave, but in the process had
forgotten to go on with it.

His sketch-books are interesting as showing his frame of mind and
temperament, while at work. In his abstraction he occasionally scribbled
beautiful thoughts on the margin of his manuscripts. Thus, in the
sketch-books of the Pastoral Symphony, we find this record of his joy in
nature, showing how thoroughly his mind was imbued with his subject.

"Almaechtiger, im Walde ich bin selig, gluecklig im Wald. Jeder Baum
spricht durch dich!"

"O Gott! Welche Herrlichkeit in einer solchen Waldgegend."

In summer he usually resorted to one of the beautiful villages in the
environs of Vienna, since absorbed by the city. Thus he repaired to
Heiligenstadt to write his first mass. "Oh, the charm of the woods, who
can express it!" he writes, and in many of his letters from the country,
he expresses his joy at being there. "No man on earth can love the
country as I do. Thickets, trees and rocks supply the echo man longs
for." His best ideas came to him while walking through the fields and
woods. At such times his mind became serene and he would attain that
degree of abstraction from the world which enabled him to develop his
musical ideas. He always carried note-books and would jot down