Beethoven loved nature as much or more than any musician ever did.  How he hailed the spring because he knew the time would soon come when he could close the door of his lodgings in the hot city, and slip away to some quiet spot and hold sweet communion with nature.  A forest was a paradise, where he could ramble among the trees and dream.  Or he would select a tree where a forking branch would form a seat near the ground.  He would climb up and sit in it for hours, lost in thought.  Leaning against the trunk of a lime tree, his eyes fixed upon the network of leaves and branches above him, he sketched the plan of his oratorio “The Mount of Olives”; also that of his one opera “Fidelio,” and the third Symphony, known as the “Eroica.”  He wrote to a friend, “No man loves the country more than I. Woods, trees and rocks give the response which man requires.  Every tree seems to say ‘Holy, holy.’”

Already, as a young man, symptoms of deafness began to appear, and the fear of becoming a victim of this malady made the composer more sensitive than ever.  He was not yet thirty when this happened, and believing his life work at an end, he became deeply depressed.  Various treatments were tried for increasing deafness; at one time it seemed to be cured by the skill of Dr. Schmidt, to whom out of gratitude he dedicated his Septet, arranged as a Trio.  By his advice the composer went for the summer of 1820 to the little village of Heiligenstadt (which means Holy City) in the hope that the calm, sweet environment would act as a balm to his troubled mind.  During this period of rest and quiet his health improved somewhat, but from now on he had to give up conducting his works, on account of his deafness.

It may be thought that one so reticent and retiring, of such hasty temper and brusque manners, would scarcely be attracted to women.  But Beethoven, it is said, was very susceptible to the charm of the opposite sex.  He was however, most careful and high-souled in all his relations with women.  He was frequently in love, but it was usually a Platonic affection.  For the Countess Julie Guicciardi he protested the most passionate love, which was in a measure returned.  She was doubtless his “immortal beloved,” whose name vibrates through the Adagio of the “Moonlight Sonata,” which is dedicated to her.  He wrote her the most adoring letters; but the union, which he seemed to desire so intensely, was never brought about, though the reason is not known.  For Bettina von Arnim, Goethe’s little friend, he conceived a tender affection.  Another love of his was for the Countess Marie Erdoedy, to whom he dedicated the two fine Trios, Op. 70, but this was also a purely Platonic affection.  The composer was unfortunate in his attachments, for the objects were always of a much higher social standing than himself.  As he constantly associated with people of rank and culture, it was natural that the young girl nobly born, with all the fascinations of the high bred aristocrat,