other great work which was completed about this time was the Symphony
in C minor (The Fifth). Here we have a work wholly subjective. It
reflects his soul experiences. His approaching deafness brought him face
to face with the greatest trouble of his life. The malady progressed
slowly but steadily, and rendered him at times hopeless. His suffering,
his despair, his resignation and final triumph are embodied in it. It is
a subtle analysis of some of the deep problems of life. The history of
his own mental state is depicted here. If we consider his malady in its
bearing on his life, we have the story of Tantalus told again. Here was
a man whose thoughts translated themselves into splendid tone-pictures
which the orchestra was to portray. With the mental equipment to create
a new era in his art, the medium by which he could apprehend his works
was being closed to him. "Is a blind painter to be imagined?" asks
Wagner in this connection. If we can imagine a great painter painting
his masterpieces, but never being permitted to see any, an analogy may
be found in the exclusion of Beethoven from all participation in the
rendering of his works, which was the case in his later years, being
unable even to conduct them. He wanted to test his work, to ascertain
how it would sound in the concert hall, and even at this time the high
tones of the violins, which he put to such exquisite uses in later
years, and which were such an inspiration to Wagner, were lost to him.
By the aid of his philosophy, however, he accepted the situation,
resolving to make the best of it; to keep on achieving, to turn his
defeats into victories. Beethoven's symphonies mean much in their
application to the common life of humanity. Knowing them even
approximately, we often find texts which illumine them in the writings
of men who went below the surface of things, Emerson, or Carlyle, or
Schopenhauer. Thus Carlyle, writing on Dante says: "He has opened the
deep unfathomable oasis of woe that lay in the soul of man; he has
opened the living fountains of hope, also of penitence." Does not the
mind instantly revert to the C minor Symphony?

Next in the order of Beethoven's great works comes the Pastoral
Symphony, named at first "Recollections of country life." Easily
comprehended, as any picture of country life should be, he yet deemed it
necessary to give a short explanation at each movement, illustrating the
meaning which he wished to convey, although he qualifie