the "Queen of the Night" and pursued her implacably through the courts to take her son away from her. It was apparent that for womankind in the abstract, Beethoven had the greatest respect and idolatry, which speedily turned to vilification if a woman departed from his ideal.

What then, was the true makeup of this man Beethoven, who at the age of 32 in his famous will the Heiligenstadt Testament, apparently wrote what amounts to a suicide note to his brother Carl? Most biographers have assumed that this farewell note was written after Beethoven's realization that he was hopelessly deaf. The fact is that he was not totally deaf at 32, but had a hearing loss in certain. tonal range, as is seen in the case of a person becoming deaf as a result of certain chronic ear diseases such as are seen in congenital syphilis and otosclerosis.

But imminent total deafness could not have been all of his sources of depression. The fact is that at that time, as usual, he had just been refused in marriage by an unattainable girl whom he had foolishly hoped to marry, namely Countess Julia Guicciardi. This girl was an impossible choice for Beethoven since she was not yet 17 and was noble born.

So Beethoven, at the age of 32, had come to the realization that both for physical and emotional reasons, he could not ever expect to lead a conventional life, and that he must either end his life, or live for his music alone.

Fortunately for mankind, he took the latter course. The Testament clearly marks a turning point in his life.

No evidence has ever turned up that Beethoven had any homosexual experiences. This would not be surprising even if Beethoven were an overt homosexual, since his life is now cloaked by the mantle of time, conventions, and greatness. However, the

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evidence is strongly suggestive that this tortured genius was possessed by powerful subconscious, chaotic sexual drives which possibly never having been expressed physically, were eventually channelled for the good of society into creative endeavors of the loftiest and most profound order. These drives seem to have been of a homosexual nature.

In summary, supporting this hypothesis:

1). Beethoven was overly attached to his mother and hated his father.

2). He was closely attached to several young men of his own age and wrote them endearing letters.

3). All of his attempts at heterosexual adjustment and marriage were doomed to failure because he sought only unattainable women and these in a long, hasty succession.

4). He had an idealistic viewpoint of women common among homosexuals, and reacted violently against any women who deviated from the ideal.

5). He eventually developed classical paranoidal trends towards people who offended him, according to the Freudian mechanism of the development of ideas of persecution in persons with repressed homosexual drives.

6). At the age of 32, he wrote what amounts to a suicide note, while in a state suggesting the familiar "homosexual panic" which commonly comes to urnings when the day arrives when they comprehend that they are surrounded by a hostile, unyielding, ununderstanding world, seemingly bent on their destruction.

In conclusion, the author believes that Beethoven at no time displayed normal sexual drives, and that on closer analysis there stands revealed an unfulfilled homosexual whose sublimated genius has redounded to the greatest glory of mankind.

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