"It all leads to the same divine issue, my poor friend," said Beethoven; "why, just see here--I'm stone-deaf, and can't hear a note of what I'm singing to you! But it is not about _that_ I weep, when I am weeping. It was terrible when it first came on, my deafness, and I could no longer hear the shepherd's pipe or the song of the lark; but it's well worth going deaf, to hear all that _I_ do. I have to write everything down, and read it to myself; and my tears fall on the ruled paper, and blister the lines, and make the notes run into each other; and when I try to blot it all out, there's that still left on the page, which, turned into sound by good father Louis the Dominican, will tell you, if you can only hear it aright, what is not to be told in any human speech; not even that of Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Erasmus, or Shakespeare; not even that of Christ himself, who speaks through me from His unknown grave, because I am deaf and cannot hear the distracting words of men--poor, paltry words at their best, which mean so many things at once that they mean just nothing at all. It's a Tower of Babel. Just stop your ears and listen with your heart and you will hear all that you can see when you shut your eyes or have lost them--and those are the only realities, mein armer Barty!" Then the good Mozart would say: "Lieber Barty--I'm so stupid about earthly things that I could never even say Boh to a goose, so I can't give you any good advice; all my heart overflowed into my brain when I was quite a little boy and made music for grown-up people to hear; from the day of my birth to my fifth birthday I had gone on remembering everything, but learning nothing new--remembering all that music! "And I went on remembering more and more till I was thirty-five; and even then there was such a lot more of it where that came from that it tired me to try and remember so much--and I went back thither. And thither back shall you go too, Barty--when you are some thirty years older! "And you already know from me how pleasant life is there--how sunny and genial and gay; and how graceful and innocent and amiable and well-bred the natives--and what beautiful prayers we sing, and what lovely gavottes and minuets we dance--and how tenderly we make love--and what funny tricks we play! and how handsome and well dressed and kind we all are--and the likes of you, how welcome! Thirty years is soon over, Barty, Barty! Bel Mazetto! Ha, ha! good!" Then says the good Schubert: