And here a word upon the compositions of these years. The notion, that the beauties of the opera “Leonore” were in great measure the offspring of an old, unfortunate affection for Fräulein von Breuning and of a still more unlucky recent passion for Julia Guicciardi, was treated in its place as unworthy of serious refutation; but nowhere in this work has anything been said affirming or implying that the moral and mental condition of the ~man~ Beethoven would not produce its natural and legitimate effect upon Beethoven the composer. Now, examine the lists of compositions which terminate the preceding chapters, and say whether any but a strong, healthy, sound, elastic mind could have produced them? To specify only the very greatest; there are in the last months of 1806, after the visit to the Brunswicks, the placid and serene Fourth Symphony--the most perfect in form of them all--and the noble Violin Concerto; in 1807, the Mass in C and the C minor Symphony; in 1808, the “Pastoral” Symphony and the Choral Fantasia; and in 1809, the conception and partial execution of the Seventh, perhaps also the Eighth, Symphony and the glorious “Egmont” music. Are such the works of a melancholy, gloomy temperament or of a forlorn, sentimental lover, sighing like a furnace and making “a woeful ballad to his mistress’ eyebrow?” [Sidenote: APPRECIATION OF SERIOUS LITERATURE] Beethoven, during the fifteen years since Wegeler’s vain effort to induce him to attend lectures on Kant, had become to some considerable degree a self-taught man; he had read and studied much, and had acquired a knowledge of the ordinary literary topics of the time, which justified that fine passage in the letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, touching his ability to acquire knowledge from even the most learned treatises. Strikingly in point is the interest which he exhibits during these and following years in the Oriental researches of Hammer and his associates. His notes and excerpts prove a very extensive knowledge of their translations, both published and in manuscript; and, moreover, that this strange literature was perhaps even more attractive to him in its religious, than in its lyric and dramatic aspects. In these excerpts--indeed, generally in extracts from books and in his underscoring of favorite passages in them--Beethoven exhibits a keen perception and taste for the lofty and sublime, far beyond the grasp of any common or uncultivated mind. “The moral law in us and the starry heavens above us. Kant!!!” is one of the brief notes from his hand, which now and then enliven the tedious and thankless task of deciphering the Conversation Books. The following, given here from his own manuscript, is perhaps the finest of his transcriptions from Hindu literature: