But enough of such anecdotes! Triumphs which would have been glory to others were nothing to him. Let us pass on and see the master in the great struggle which prefaced the real commencement of life's work, and was continued without intermission until the victory was won. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 14: Marx, vol. i., p. 66.] [Footnote 15: This is evidently an error. The Trio had been published in 1798.--Thayer, Vol. II., p. 101.] [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. CONFLICT. Deafness and its Consequences--His Brothers' Influence--Letters to Wegeler--"Mount of Olives"--Beethoven's Will--Beethoven as an Instructor--a Conductor--Sinfonia Eroica--"Leonora" ("Fidelio")--"Adelaïde." Suffering and genius! apparently so far apart, in reality so near! The bitter cry of Milton,-- "Dark, dark, dark, amidst the blaze of noon!" has gone up from many a thousand hearts to the eternal throne; but who may presume to fathom the dispensations of a mysterious providence? or to question that wisdom which gives to every earthborn soul the necessary discipline for immortality? Let us rather wonder and adore, and-- "Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and _be strong_." We left our young musician in the full flush of success, in apparently vigorous health, caressed and flattered by princes, without a rival as a virtuoso, and fast leaving all competitors behind him as a composer, when suddenly a cloud appears, the brightness is overcast, and darkness comes on apace. _Beethoven became deaf._ For three years he had had premonitory fears, which were too sadly realized in the year 1801. The loss of hearing is deprivation enough in ordinary cases; but to a young man of excitable artist temperament, and a musician! it seemed for a while worse than the loss of life itself. Our Beethoven writes thus to Wegeler:-- "If I had not read somewhere that man must not of his own free will depart this life, I should long ere this have been no more, and that through my own act." From this despair he was mercifully rescued. The strong, secret voice within, impelling Beethoven onwards and upwards to that aim which he "felt, but could not describe," spoke now in more stirring accents and with more thrilling emphasis amid the profound silence and desolation of his nature. He "was not disobedient" to the heavenly call; the triumph of mind was achieved; and from the dark prison-house the noblest strains the world has ever heard escaped to wake responsive echoes in the hearts of all who have felt and suffered.