Again, Beethoven ignored the well-established convention of separating different sections from one another by well-defined breaks. It was the custom with earlier masters to stop at the end of a passage, ‘to present arms, as it were,’ with a series of chords or other conventional stop; with Beethoven this gives place to a method of subtly connecting, instead of separating, the different sections, for which he used parts of the main theme or phrases akin to it, thus making the connecting link an inherent part of the piece. He also makes use of episodes in the working-out section, introduces even new themes, and expands both the coda and the introduction. These modifications are of the nature of enlargements or developments of a plan already accepted, and seem, as Grove points out, ‘to have sprung from the fact of his regarding his music less as a piece of technical performance than his predecessors had perhaps done, and more as the expression of the ideas with which his mind was charged.’ These ideas were too wide and too various to be contained within the usual limits, and, therefore, the limits had to be enlarged. The thing of first importance to him was the idea, to be expressed exactly as he wished, without regard to theoretical formulæ, which too often had become dry and meaningless. Therefore he allows himself liberties--such as the use of consecutive fifths--if they convey the exact impression he wishes to convey. Other musicians had also allowed themselves such liberties, but not with the same high-handed individualistic confidence that Beethoven betrays. ‘In Beethoven the fact was connected with the peculiar position he had taken in society, and with the new ideas which the general movement of freedom at the end of the eighteenth century, and the French Revolution in particular, had forced even into such strongholds as the Austrian courts.... What he felt he said, both in society and in his music.... The great difference is that, whereas in his ordinary intercourse he was extremely abrupt and careless of effect, in his music he was exactly the reverse--painstaking, laborious, and never satisfied till he had conveyed his ideas in unmistakable language.’[62] In other words, conventional rules and regulations of composition which had formerly been the dominating factor were made subservient to what he considered the essentials--consistency of mood and the development of the poetic idea. He becomes the tone poet whose versatility and beauty of expression increase with the increasing power of his thought. Technical accessories of art were elevated to their highest importance, not for the sake of mere ornamentation, but because they were of use in enlarging and developing the idea.