This prodigality with which the artist is supplied, explains his absorption in his work.  Once fairly started on a great work, this type of man carries it through with the force of a torrent.  Nothing but physical exhaustion can stop him.  Wagner, after completing a great work, usually had to drop all composing or writing for some months in order to recuperate.  No slave-driver with a lash ever drove his victim so mercilessly as Wagner did himself when in the stress of composition.  Being married he had some one to look after him, and this had an important bearing on the preservation of his health.  Beethoven, with the strenuousness that came from his Rhenish ancestry, was more intractable, impatient of interference.  His domestics were often afraid to go near him when engaged in composition.  Usually when in deep thought he was oblivious of the outer world.  He once agreed to sit for an artist, and maintained his pose for five minutes; then he forgot all about it and went to the piano, where he began improvising.  This just suited the artist, who got a good position and worked along until he was tired, finally leaving the room without the master’s knowledge.

The Swedish poet, Atterbohm, and Dr. Jeitteles, distinguished literary men of the period, called at Beethoven’s house one hot afternoon.  Their knocking met with no response, although they knew the master was in, as they heard him singing and occasionally striking a chord on the piano.  Finding the door unlocked, they entered and went in search of him, finally discovering him in an inner room.  He was in extreme dishabille, busily noting down his thoughts on the plastered wall.  He had probably intended changing his clothes, and, while disrobing, these thoughts came crowding in on him to the exclusion of everything else.  Beethoven, facing the wall with his back to the visitors, was unaware of their proximity, and they left without being discovered by him, as they did not wish to interfere with his work.  This was probably in the year 1826, as Beethoven remained in Vienna all that summer, actively engaged on the great C sharp minor quartet.  It may have been a part of this work which was thus produced.

Friederich Stark relates an incident that illustrates his abstraction.  He called on Beethoven early one morning, and, being a friend, was given the privilege of looking him up.  He went from room to room, and finally found him in his bedroom.  He was just beginning to dress, his face thickly lathered with soap that had been put on the previous evening and had dried there; he had prepared to shave, but in the process had forgotten to go on with it.

His sketch-books are interesting as showing his frame of mind and temperament, while at work.  In his abstraction he occasionally scribbled beautiful thoughts on the margin of his manuscripts.  Thus, in the sketch-books of the Pastoral Symphony, we find this record of his joy in nature, showing how thoroughly his mind was imbued with his subject.