Another constant harassment of Beethoven in his later years was poverty. The annuity settled upon him by his patrons was so seriously decreased by a depreciation in the value of paper money and by the deaths of some of the donors that it eventually amounted to only four hundred dollars a year. “If my salary,” he wrote in 1822, “were not so far reduced as to be no salary at all, I would write nothing but symphonies for a full orchestra, and church music, or at most quartets.” As it was, he had to devote a part of his time to writing for money, a servitude intensely distasteful to one so devoted to high artistic ideals, so constitutionally incapable of compromise. He puts the best face on the matter, jokes about it as he does about everything; but it is obvious that he suffered much to gather the florins his nephew so easily spent. “I wander about here with music paper, among the hills and dales and valleys, and scribble a great deal to get my daily bread; for I have brought things to such a pass ... that in order to gain time for a great composition, I must always previously scrawl away a good deal for the sake of money.” But his attitude towards publishers remained dignified, considerate; he knew how to respect his own work and rights without falling into the petty egotism of the so-called “artistic temperament.” “I must apprise you,” he writes Herr Peters of the well-known Leipzig publishing house, “that I cannot accept less than 50 ducats for a string quartet, and 70 for a pianoforte one, without incurring loss; indeed, I have repeatedly been offered more than 50 ducats for a violin quartet. I am, however, always unwilling to ask more than necessary, so I adhere to the sum of 50 ducats, which is, in fact, nowadays the usual price. I feel positively ashamed when I have to ask a price for a really great work. Still, such is my position that it obliges me to secure every possible advantage. It is very different, however, with the work itself; when I never, thank God, think of profit, but solely of how I write it.” It is a similar dignified sense of his responsibilities, far removed from vanity, that prompts him to request of an editor notice of his nomination as an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Musical Academy. “Although neither vain nor ambitious,” he says, “still I consider it advisable not wholly to pass over such an occurrence, as in practical life we must live and work for others, who may often eventually benefit by it.” The sincerity of these convictions is proved by the fact that after Beethoven’s death in poverty, eight bank-shares were found among his papers, carefully preserved by him for the legacy of his nephew.