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FROM THE ARCHIVE1855·New York, New York

BEETHOVEN'S FINAL MOMENTS REVEALED

Scanned from Frank Leslie'S Illustrated Newspaper, 1855
BEETHOVEN'S FINAL MOMENTS REVEALED
Source image courtesy of the Library of Congress · Chronicling America
Page transcript (OCR)

Ie ee ea ee ee ee Sa a ee woe me oe a ee ee ee tee eS TS ee a a a oe i Fes 20 18691 VIEW FROM THE HILL BACK OF SANTIAGO DE CUBA struggling with death and entertained little hopes of finding him alive on their return. During the last moments of Beethovens life there was with the exception of Madame von Beethoven and myself no one in the chamber of death. After Beet hoven had from three oclock in the afternoon when. I arrived till past five been lying with the rattle in his throat in the agony of death a flash of lightning ac companied by a violent clap of thunder darted into the room which it vividly illumined snow was lying on the ground opposite Beethovens residence.

After this unexpected natural phenomenon that struck me forcibly Beethoven opened his eyes raised his hand and with clinched fist gazed fixedly for some seconds upward with an extremely serious and threatening expression as though he wished to say Idefy ye ye hostile powers Away from me God is with me. It seemed too as though like a bold commander he wanted to cry out to.

OCR may contain errors typical of early 20th-century print scans. Punctuation and paragraph breaks have been reconstructed for readability.