Then it was that Beethoven faced his terrible calamity with an amount of courage that seems amazing. He applied himself with increased enthusiasm to his musical studies and at times seemed almost to forget his deafness. There is no doubt that his affliction touched his spirit so that there is in nearly all his compositions, a peculiar melancholy strain. He lived much to himself. He had already written, “Poor Beethoven, there is no external happiness for you! You must create your own happiness.” When he was only a little over thirty he wrote a letter which shows how extremely crushed he was for a time. He wrote, “My heart and my mind were from childhood prone to the tender feelings of affection. Nay, I was always disposed to perform great actions. I have been attacked by an incurable complaint, made worse by the unskilful treatment of medical men, disappointed from year to year in the hope of relief, and at last obliged to submit to the endurance of an evil the cure of which may last for years, if it is practicable at all. Born with a lively disposition, susceptible to the diversions of society, I was forced at an early age to renounce them, and to pass my life in seclusion.” It was not to be wondered at that Beethoven developed some peculiar habits. He loved the out-of-doors, but if for any reason he could not get out he had ways of creating inspiration. “He would go to the wash-bowl and pour several jugs of water over his hands and wrists and dabble there until his clothing was drenched. Often in his rapture he would pour a great deal more water out than the bowl could hold, and the water would soon be dripping through the ceiling down into the room below.” Sometimes when he was composing he would scarcely eat for days at a time, and it was utterly useless for friends to remonstrate with him, because he was like a man living in another world. Once when he was engaged on a great composition a friend called upon him and thus described his visit: “The house was deserted by servants, every comfort was absent. Shut up in a room alone the great man resorted to singing, shouting, stamping, as if in the throes of mental torture. In appearance he was wild, dishevelled, exhausted with long periods of work and abstinence from food of any kind.”