available, the cessation of his teaching (Von Frimmel mentions a pupil, Hirsch, who had a few lessons from him in 1817, which was probably the last of Beethoven’s sporadic attempts in this direction, as his deafness must have made teaching extremely difficult), were all factors which rendered money a scarce article with him.  In the same ratio in which his income had been diminished, his expenses were increased by the maintenance and education of his nephew, which in large part was borne by Beethoven.

This new estimate of the value of money was strengthened by the conviction that Karl would never do anything for himself, and that provision must be made for his future.  To this must be attributed his solicitude for money which is constantly in evidence in his letters to his friends, as well as to his publishers, in which latter the disposition to drive a good bargain comes to the fore now for the first time.  His letters to Ries are full of the subject of making money.  “Waere ich nicht noch immer der arme Beethoven,” he says with unconscious humor, in one of the letters.  “If I could but get to London, what would I not write for the Philharmonic Society.  If it please God to restore my health, which is already improved, I may yet avail myself of the several propositions made me, not only from Europe, but even North America, and thus my finances might again prosper.”

His naive reference to this country[D] refers to the offer made him by the Haendel and Haydn Society of Boston for an oratorio, the text of which was to be furnished by them.  His work on the Ninth Symphony prevented him from accepting it, but it is something that will always redound to the credit of the society.  That the critical faculty should, already at that time, have been sufficiently well developed in this country as to lead to such a commission, augurs well for its future art-history.  While one portion were engaged in subduing the wilderness, fighting Indians, extending the frontier, others were already reaching out for the highest and best in art and literature.[E] It is a pleasant reflection that this country is no longer the terra incognita in musical matters that it was in Beethoven’s time.  The ready recognition extended Wagner from the first here, has, no doubt, helped to bring this about.

[D] When writing this letter Beethoven could have had no prevision that in this aboriginal North America, in a little village called Natick, there was then living a five-year-old boy, answering to the name of Alexander W. Thayer, who was eventually to furnish a biography of the master, so painstaking, exact and voluminous, that it is unique in its class.  The Beethoven biography was Thayer’s life-work, to which he gladly sacrificed his means as well, and was then only brought down to the year 1816.  Thayer’s name will always be associated with that of Beethoven, it is such a record-making work.  It is published only in German at this writing (1904), but an English translation is promised on completion of the second edition, one volume of which has appeared in 1902.  Mr. Thayer died in 1897.