Two years later, on 7 May, 1824, when conducting the _Choral Symphony_ (or rather, as the programme said, "taking part in the direction of the concert") he heard nothing at all of the clamour of the audience applauding him. He did not even suspect it, until one of the singers, taking him by the hand turned him round; and he suddenly saw the audience waving their hats and clapping their hands. An English traveller, Russell, who saw him at the piano about the year 1825, says that when he wanted to play quietly the notes did not sound and that it was very moving to follow in silence the emotion animating him expressed in his face, and in the movements of his fingers. Buried in himself,[52] and separated from all mankind, his only consolation was in Nature. "She was his sole confident," says Theresa of Brunswick, "she was his refuge." Charles Neate, who knew him in 1815, says that he never saw anyone who loved flowers, clouds and nature so devotedly[53]; he seemed to live in them. "No one on earth can love the country so much as I," wrote Beethoven. "I love a tree more than a man." When in Vienna he walked round the ramparts every day. In the country from daybreak till night he walked alone, without hat, in sunshine or rain. "Almighty God! In the woods I am happy, happy in the woods, where each tree speaks through Thee. O God, what splendour! In the forests, on the hills, it is the calm, the quiet, that helps me." His unrestfulness of mind found some respite there.[54] He was harassed by financial cares. He wrote in 1818, "I am almost reduced to beggary, and I am obliged to pretend that I do not lack necessities"; and at another time, "The _Sonata Op. 106_ has been written under pressing circumstances. It is a hard thing to have to work for bread." Spohr says that often he could not go out on account of his worn-out shoes. He owed large debts to his publishers and his compositions did not bring him in anything. The _Mass in D_, published by subscription, obtained only seven subscribers (of whom not one was a musician).[55] He received barely thirty or forty ducats for his fine Sonatas, each one of which cost him three months' work. The Quartets, _Opp._ 127, 130, and 132, amongst his profoundest works, which seem to be written with his very heart-blood, were written for Prince Galitzin, who neglected to pay for them. Beethoven was worn out with domestic difficulties, and with endless law suits to obtain the pensions owing to him or to retain the guardianship of a nephew, the son of his brother Carl, who died of consumption in 1815.