And yet the great works of his last years have been decried and are not now accepted by many. He himself was discontented with many of his earlier compositions, and this self-depreciation does not seem the singular yet not uncommon affectation of genius. In a letter written to Ries in 1816 he declared that the death of his brother had impressed him profoundly and influenced not only his character but his works. For a time following he wrote but little; and then he pondered compositions of gigantic proportions. The pianoforte ceased to accommodate itself to his thoughts; the string quartet and the orchestra were constantly in his mind. "The most exalted, the most wondrous, the most inconceivable music," says Rubinstein, "was not written until after his total deafness. As the seer may be imagined blind, that is, blind to his surroundings, and seeing with the eyes of the soul, so the hearer may be imagined deaf to all his surroundings and hearing with the hearing of the soul." Deafness befriended him when it closed the doors of sense. It helped him to turn from outward things, and find peace and consolation in the ideal world of tones. The spiritual voices that he heard were the companions of his solitude. He thus vindicated the true spirituality of music. The deaf man justified its ancient, poetical significance. This inward life accounts for his early inclination for instrumental music. The highly developed forms gave wide range to his imagination, through the almost unlimited resources of the orchestra, in compass, technical execution, and tone-color. While in his orchestral works Beethoven reveals all the tragic fire, and dramatic strength of his nature, it is in his string quartets that he is most spiritual and mystical. This is due, first, to the nature of the four combined instruments, so pure and ethereal in their tone effects.