His approaching deafness also had a good
deal to do with his great activity. The ailment had progressed steadily
from the time of its first appearance; at the time of which we write he
had abandoned all hope of any aid from medical treatment; by throwing
himself heart and soul into his work, he could forget for the time the
misfortune which was closing in on him. He feared that a period of
absolute deafness might set in when he would be unable to hear any of
his works, and the desire must have been great to accomplish as much as
possible before that time should come.
Beethoven does not seem to have been very hard to suit in the way of a
libretto at this time. He probably gave the matter very little
consideration except on one point,--its morality. His high ideals, and
his innate purity of mind, caused him to dislike and condemn the sort of
story which was usually worked up into operatic libretti in those days,
in which intrigue and illicit love formed the staple material. He
expressed himself strongly on this subject, even criticising Mozart for
having set Don Giovanni to music, saying that it degraded the art.
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