I am told, indeed, that he has
sometimes been out whole nights on such excursions, and is often
absent from home for several days. On the way to the valley [the
Hellenenthal, near the Austrian Baden] he often stopped to point out
the prettiest views, or to remark on the defects of the new buildings.
Then he would go back again to his own thoughts and hum to himself in
an incomprehensible fashion; which, I heard, was his fashion of
composing."
Professor Kloeber, a well-known artist of that period, who painted
Beethoven's portrait, relates that he often met Beethoven during his
walks near Vienna. "It was most interesting to watch him," he writes;
"how he would stand still as if listening, with a piece of music paper
in his hands, look up and down and then write something. Dont had told
me when I met him thus not to speak or take any notice, as he would be
very much embarrassed or very disagreeable. I saw him once, when I was
taking a party to the woods, clambering up to an opposite height from
the ravine which separated us, with his broad-brimmed felt hat tucked
under his arm; arrived at the top, he threw himself down full length
and gazed long into the sky.
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