I only wish to live for the boy's sake." Holz took him out of
this mood.
In the last year of his life Beethoven, at Holz's request appointed him
his biographer as follows:
VIENNA, _Aug. 30, 1826_.
I am happy to give my friend, Karl Holz, the testimonial he
desires, namely,--that I consider him well qualified to write my
biography if indeed, I may presume to think this will be desired. I
place the utmost confidence in his faithfully transmitting to
posterity what I have imparted to him for this purpose.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
Holz, however, was not equal to the requirements, and this duty was
relegated to Schindler.
A curious change affected Beethoven in his later years on the subject of
money. It was not avarice, that "good old-gentlemanly vice" of Byron's
which influenced him, but it resembled it at times. With his nephew as
the inciting cause, money, to which he had hitherto been indifferent,
now assumed a new value to him.
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