[88] The humor to which Beethoven resorts in this note in order to show his contrition necessarily evaporates in any attempt to translate its Viennese colloquialisms. “Herzens Natzerl” is to be understood as “Dear little Ignacius of my heart,” Nazerl being an affectionate diminutive of Ignaz or Ignacius. Why it should have been applied to Hummel, whose Christian names were Johann Nepomuk, does not appear. “Mehlschöberl” is a term which has survived in the Austrian cuisine of to-day, the article itself being a sort of soup dumpling. Chapter XVII Beethoven’s Character and Personality--His Disposition--Love of Nature--Relations with the Opposite Sex--Literary Tastes--His Letters--Manner of Composing--The Sketchbooks--Origin of His Deafness. The year 1800 is an important era in Beethoven’s history. It is the year in which, cutting loose from the pianoforte, he asserted his claims to a position with Mozart and the still living and productive Haydn in the higher forms of chamber and orchestral composition--the quartet and the symphony. It is the year, too, in which the bitter consciousness of an increasing derangement of his organs of hearing was forced upon him and the terrible anticipation of its incurable nature and of its final result in almost total deafness began to harass and distress him. The course of his life was afterwards so modified, on the one hand, by the prosperous issue of these new appeals to the taste and judgment of the public, and, on the other, by the unhappy progress of his malady, each acting and reacting upon a nature singularly exceptional, that for this and other reasons some points in his personal character and habits, and a few general remarks upon and illustrations of another topic or two must be made before resuming the narrative of events.