thoughts. In a corner of his room lay a large pile of note-books, into
which he had copied in ink his first rough pencil-sketches. Many of
these sketch-books have been fortunately preserved, and they are among
the most remarkable relics we have of any man of genius. They prove
above all things that rapidity of work is not a test of musical
inspiration, and that Carlyle was not entirely wrong when he defined
genius as "an immense capacity for taking trouble." In the "Fidelio"
sketch-book, for example, sixteen pages are almost entirely filled
with sketches for a scene which takes up less than three pages of the
vocal score. Of the aria, "O Hoffnung," there are as many as eighteen
different versions, and of the final chorus, ten; and these are not
exceptional cases by any means. As Thayer remarks: "To follow a
recitative or aria through all its guises is an extremely fatiguing
task, and the almost countless studies for a duet or terzet are enough
to make one frantic." Thayer quotes Jahn's testimony that these
afterthoughts are invariably superior to the first conception, and
adds that "some of his first ideas for pieces which are now among the
jewels of the opera are so extremely trivial and commonplace, that one
would hardly dare to attribute them to Beethoven, were they not in
his own handwriting."

On the other hand these sketch-books bear witness to the extreme
fertility of Beethoven's genius. Thayer estimates that the number of
distinct ideas noted in them, which remained unused, is as large as
the number which he used; and he refers to this as a commentary on the
remark which Beethoven made toward the close of his life: "It seems to
me as if I were only just beginning to compose." And Nottebohm, who
has studied these sketch-books more thoroughly than any one else,
thinks that if Beethoven had elaborated all the symphonies which he
began in these books we should have at least fifty instead of nine.