elegated,
as an heritage of the past, the best fruit of Beethoven's genius. When
the Mass in D and the last Quartets can be heard frequently, a new era
in the art will have been inaugurated.

It would be a mistake to suppose that Beethoven was a pessimist, or a
misanthrope. Placed here to live and suffer, not knowing why it should
be so, he yet teaches that relentless fate cannot prevail against those
who make a good fight. "I did not wish to find when I came to die that I
had not lived," said Thoreau, paraphrasing from Voltaire, (most men die
without having lived). "I did not wish to live what was not life, living
is so dear." Beethoven's idea of the purport of life was similar. He
believed, and put his theory into practice, that each man has within
himself the potentialities with which he shapes his own destiny. Fate
and Destiny are verities that have to be faced, but they do not have all
their own way with us. Each of us has the power to control his destiny
to some extent. By willing it so the tendency is toward betterment.
Always the highest powers are on our side. Life, after all, is worth
while. This was the gist of his philosophy. He sought to establish an
optimistic view of life, with the object of making the problem easier to
solve.

Fichte, in his work "Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten", gives the literary
man the place of priest in the world, continually unfolding the Godlike
to man. This was also Beethoven's aim. Haydn charged him with being an
atheist, but his works as well as his life refute this charge. The Kyrie
and the Agnus Dei of the Mass in D, could never have been produced had
he been other than a devout, religious man. In his journals he
continually addresses the Godhead. Outwardly, however, he gave no sign.
"Religion and general-bass," he said once, with a touch of humor, "are
in themselves two inscrutable things (_abgeschlossene Dinge_) about
which one should not argue."

He was solicitous that his nephew should receive proper religious
instruction, and made this a point in his letters to the magistrates
while the lawsuit over him was in progress. After giving his ideas as to
the proper education of the young man, in which French, Greek, music and
drawing take a prominent place, he adds, "I have found a holy father who
has undertaken to instruct him in his duties as a Christian, as well as
a man, for only on this foundation can we bring up genuine people."
Again, "It is for his soul's welfare tha