20. "Nature is a glorious school for the heart! It is well; I
shall be a scholar in this school and bring an eager heart to her
instruction. Here I shall learn wisdom, the only wisdom that is
free from disgust; here I shall learn to know God and find a
foretaste of heaven in His knowledge. Among these occupations my
earthly days shall flow peacefully along until I am accepted into
that world where I shall no longer be a student, but a knower of
wisdom."

(Copied into his diary, in 1818, from Sturm's "Betrachtungen uber
die Werke Gottes in der Natur.")

21. "Soon autumn will be here. Then I wish to be like unto a
fruitful tree which pours rich stores of fruit into our laps! But
in the winter of existence, when I shall be gray and sated with
life, I desire for myself the good fortune that my repose be as
honorable and beneficent as the repose of nature in the winter
time."

(Copied from the same work of Sturm's.)



CONCERNING TEXTS



Not even a Beethoven was spared the tormenting question of texts
for composition. It is fortunate for posterity that he did not
exhaust his energies in setting inefficient libretti, that he did