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.

The sketch-books show that Beethoven was in the habit of working at
several compositions at the same time; and the ideas for these are so
jumbled up in his books that he himself apparently needed a guide to
find them. At least, when ideas belonging together are widely
separated he used to connect them by writing the letters VI over the
first passage and DE over the second. He also used to write the word
"better" in French on some pages, or else the figures 100, 500, 1,000,
etc., probably, as Schindler thinks, to indicate the relative value of
certain ideas.

When his mind was in a creative mood, Beethoven was as completely
absorbed (or "absent-minded," as we generally say) as Mozart. This is
illustrated by an amusing trait described by his biographers.
"Beethoven was extremely fond of washing. He would pour water
backwards and forwards over his hands for a long time together, and if
at such times a musical thought struck him and he became absorbed, he
would go on until the whole floor was swimming, and the water had
found its way through the ceiling into the room beneath" (Grove).
Consequently, as may be imagined, he not infrequently had trouble with
his landlord. He was constantly changing his lodgings, and always
spent the summer in the country, where he did his best work. "In the
winter," he once remarked to Rellstab, "I do but little; I only write
out and score what I have composed in the summer. But that takes a
long time. When I get into the country I am fit for anything."

On account of his deafness, Beethoven affords a striking instance of
the power musicians have of imagining novel sound effects which they
never could have heard with their ears. In literature we blame a
writer who, as the expression goes, "evolves his facts from his inner
consciousness;" but in music this proceeding is evidence of the
highest genius, because music has only a few elementary "facts" or
prototypes, in nature. Beethoven was deaf at thirty-two. He never
heard his "Fidelio," and for twenty-five years he could hear music
only with the i