Thread by @marinamaral2

(Trigger warning) Depressed and unable to hide his increasing infirmity, Beethoven wrote on October 6th 1802 a document entitled "The Heiligenstadt Testament":

“O how harshly was I repulsed by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing...

... and yet it was impossible for me to say to men speak louder, shout, for I am deaf. Ah how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in highest perfection...

(...) I must live like an exile, if I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me, a fear that I may be subjected to the danger of letting my condition be observed.

(...) but what a humiliation when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard the shepherd singing and again I heard nothing.

Such incidents brought me to the verge of despair...

... but little more and I would have put an end to my life - only art it was that withheld me.

(...) It is my wish that your lives be better and freer from care than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children, it alone can give happiness, not money. I speak from experience.

It was virtue that upheld me in misery, to it next to my art I owe the fact that I did not end my life with suicide. Farewell and love each other.

(...) I desire that the instruments from Prince L. be preserved by one of you but let no quarrel result from this...

... so soon as they can serve you better purpose sell them. How glad will I be if I can still be helpful to you in my grave.

(...) Farewell and do not wholly forget me when I am dead. I deserve this of you in having often in life thought how to make you happy, be so -

Heiglnstadt, October 6, 1802,
- Ludwig van Beethowen”

After some months of bedridden illness, he died in 1827.