268 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



stant treatment by baths and drugs, always hopeful, always finally 

 worse. 



In October, 1826, Beethoven, with his miserable nephew, visited 

 Johann Beethoven at Gneixendorf. This niggardly man denied his 

 sick brother a fire in his room, although the weather became severe, 

 and the food he served him was not suited to Beethoven's disturbed 

 digestion. They quarreled over the affairs of the nephew, and the com- 

 poser packed his things on December 2 for a journey back to Vienna. 



" It was biting weather, and even the winter sun seemed permanently 

 hidden. A closed vehicle was consequently indispensable for a fifty 

 miles' journey; the brother would not lend his, so with great mis- 

 givings Beethoven hazarded an open conveyance — a milk cart, it is sup- 

 posed, — ' the most wretched vehicle of hell ' as the composer described it. 

 . . . Beethoven, though only clad in summer clothing, resolutely faced 

 all." It was a two days' journey and it cost him his life. 



He took to his bed. Not only were his old ailments aggravated, but 

 inflammation of the lungs set in. His nephew neglected to call a 

 physician and none came to see him until three days after his return. 

 Dropsy, the last symptom of his old abdominal ailment, appeared and 

 on December 18 he had to be tapped. Again on January 8 and 28 the 

 fluid had to be withdrawn. " Better water from my body than from my 

 pen," he is said to have remarked. Malfatti, a former physician, was 

 called, and under his care he improved, but only for a time. " His long, 

 painfully long, end was now beginning. His constitution, powerful as 

 that of a giant, blocked the gates against death for nearly three months." 

 The end came on March 26, 1827, at the age of fifty-seven. 



The physical Beethoven was a most impressive figure. He was not 

 tall — was in fact, short, — not over five feet five inches, but with broad 

 shoulders, and very firmly built. Siegfried said that " in that limited 

 space was concentrated the pluck of twenty battalions." His head was 

 large, with profuse black hair thrown backward and upward from a 

 grand forehead ; he had great breadth of jaw and somewhat protruding 

 lips. His clean-shaven face was pock-marked from early youth, and 

 browned and burned by wind and sun; his eyes, large and jet black, 

 were full of the fire of genius, and were often remarkably bright and 

 peculiarly piercing; his teeth were beautifully white and regular. His 

 hands were thick and dumpy, with short, untapered fingers; his feet, 

 small and graceful. On the whole his was not a handsome figure, " but 

 the ugly pock-marked man with the piercing eye, was possessed of a 

 power and beauty more attractive than mere physical charm." One 

 person described him as "power personified," and another thought of 

 him as a Jupiter. 



Julius Benedict, who saw him in 1822, wrote: "Who could ever 

 forget those striking features? The lofty vaulted forehead with thick 



