Born with a passionate and excitable temperament, keenly susceptible to the pleasures of society, I was yet obliged early in life to isolate myself, and to pass my existence in solitude.  If I at any time resolved to surmount all this, oh! how cruelly was I again repelled by the experience, sadder than ever, of my defective hearing!—­and yet I found it impossible to say to others:  Speak louder; shout! for I am deaf!  Alas! how could I proclaim the deficiency of a sense which ought to have been more perfect with me than with other men,—­a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, to an extent, indeed, that few of my profession ever enjoyed!  Alas, I cannot do this!  Forgive me therefore when you see me withdraw from you with whom I would so gladly mingle.  My misfortune is doubly severe from causing me to be misunderstood.  No longer can I enjoy recreation in social intercourse, refined conversation, or mutual outpourings of thought.  Completely isolated, I only enter society when compelled to do so.  I must live like an exile.  In company I am assailed by the most painful apprehensions, from the dread of being exposed to the risk of my condition being observed.  It was the same during the last six months I spent in the country.  My intelligent physician recommended me to spare my hearing as much as possible, which was quite in accordance with my present disposition, though sometimes, tempted by my natural inclination for society, I allowed myself to be beguiled into it.  But what humiliation when any one beside me heard a flute in the far distance, while I heard nothing, or when others heard a shepherd singing, and I still heard nothing!  Such things brought me to the verge of desperation, and wellnigh caused me to put an end to my life. Art! art alone, deterred me.  Ah! how could I possibly quit the world before bringing forth all that I felt it was my vocation to produce?[2] And thus I spared this miserable life—­so utterly miserable that any sudden change may reduce me at any moment from my best condition into the worst.  It is decreed that I must now choose Patience for my guide!  This I have done.  I hope the resolve will not fail me, steadfastly to persevere till it may please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread of my life.  Perhaps I may get better, perhaps not.  I am prepared for either.  Constrained to become a philosopher in my twenty-eighth year![3] This is no slight trial, and more severe on an artist than on any one else.  God looks into my heart, He searches it, and knows that love for man and feelings of benevolence have their abode there!  Oh! ye who may one day read this, think that you have done me injustice, and let any one similarly afflicted be consoled, by finding one like himself, who, in defiance of all the obstacles of Nature, has done all in his power to be included in the ranks of estimable artists and men.  My brothers Carl and Johann, as soon as I am no more, if Professor Schmidt [see