During most of the active years of his life, Beethoven had been planning a musical setting for Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” In the evening of his life it was at last completed. In 1824, just about two years before his death, Beethoven directed a rendering of this music in Vienna. During this performance a pathetic scene was enacted. At the close the applause became so deafening and was so prolonged that a serious public disturbance was feared, and the police were called in. Beethoven, who could hear no sound of all that was transpiring, stood with his back to the audience, wholly unconscious of the situation. At length someone touched him and caused him to turn around. When the people saw the look of surprise that spread over his face and realized the pathos of the situation, they broke out in a fresh demonstration, during which many faces were wet with tears. By the time he was thirty years of age Beethoven had begun to be a victim of failing hearing. The dawn of this realization, which would have broken the spirit of many a man and which was a deep grief to him, did not daunt him nor greatly interfere with the completion of a great musical career. He did not dwell unduly upon his misfortune and, for a time, he even kept it a secret. Through the remaining years of his life, he patiently endured the difficulty, hindrance, and poverty of musical enjoyment which it brought him. That it had been to him a constant source of mental anguish, however, is indicated in the closing hour of his life. That hour came at the close of an illness which had been brought on by an undue exposure. It was while a severe thunderstorm was in progress outside that the great master lay surrounded by a group of friends who had been very faithful to him during his last illness, and some of whom were themselves eminent men. He indicated to them his knowledge that the end was near and then, after a silence, he said, “I shall hear in heaven,” and in a little time he was gone. This was the ending of an unselfish life. Nothing but real devotion can leave the record that is his self-sacrifice. For the reckless and undeserving son of a dead brother, he denied himself real necessities for years, a sacrifice which met with neither appreciation nor effort to be worthy. The uncle remained true, however, and after his death when he was found to have held some unsuspected wealth in the form of bonds, it was supposed that he had kept it intact through his own days of severe personal need in order that it might go to his unworthy charge.