He went from room to room, and finally
found him in his bedroom. He was just beginning to dress, his face
thickly lathered with soap that had been put on the previous evening and
had dried there; he had prepared to shave, but in the process had
forgotten to go on with it.
His sketch-books are interesting as showing his frame of mind and
temperament, while at work. In his abstraction he occasionally scribbled
beautiful thoughts on the margin of his manuscripts. Thus, in the
sketch-books of the Pastoral Symphony, we find this record of his joy in
nature, showing how thoroughly his mind was imbued with his subject.
"Almaechtiger, im Walde ich bin selig, gluecklig im Wald. Jeder Baum
spricht durch dich!"
"O Gott! Welche Herrlichkeit in einer solchen Waldgegend."
In summer he usually resorted to one of the beautiful villages in the
environs of Vienna, since absorbed by the city. Thus he repaired to
Heiligenstadt to write his first mass. "Oh, the charm of the woods, who
can express it!" he writes, and in many of his letters from the country,
he expresses his joy at being there.
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