It is now desirable to disregard the strict chronological sequence of incident and dispose, so far as is possible, of the history of the great Mass in D prior to the adoption of a new plan by which Beethoven hoped to make it a source of extraordinary revenue. So far as it affects Beethoven’s character as a man not always scrupulous in his observance of business obligations, the story does not need to extend beyond the year 1822. Careful readers of this biography can easily recall a number of lapses from high ideals of candor and justice in his treatment of his friends and of a nice sense of honor and honesty in his dealings with his publishers; but at no time have these blemishes been so numerous or so patent as they are in his negotiations for the publication of the _Missa Solemnis_--a circumstance which is thrown into a particularly strong light by the frequency and vehemence of his protestations of moral rectitude in the letters which have risen like ghosts to accuse him, and by the strange paradox that the period is one in which his artistic thoughts and imagination dwelt in the highest regions to which they ever soared. He was never louder in his protestations of business morality than when he was promising the mass to four or more publishers practically at the same time, and giving it to none of them; never more apparently frank than when he was making ignoble use of a gentleman, whom he himself described as one of the best friends on earth, as an intermediary between himself and another friend to whom he was bound by business ties and childhood associations which challenged confidence; never more obsequious (for even this word must now be used in describing his attitude towards Franz Brentano) than after he had secured a loan from that friend in the nature of an advance on a contract which he never carried out; never more apparently sincere than when he told one publisher (after he had promised the mass to another) that he should be particularly sorry if he were unable to give the mass into his hands; never more forcefully and indignantly honest in appearance than when he informed still another publisher that the second had importuned him for the mass (“bombarded” was the word), but that he had never even deigned to answer his letters. But even this is far from compassing the indictment; the counts are not even complete when it is added that in a letter he states that the publisher whom he had told it would have been a source of sorrow not to favor had never even been contemplated amongst those who might receive the mass; that he permitted the friend to whom he first promised the score to tie up some of his capital for a year and more so that “good Beethoven” should not have to wait a day for his money; that after promising the mass to the third publisher he sought to create the impression that it was not the _Missa Solemnis_ that had been bargained for, but one of two masses which he had in hand.