Meanwhile year after year passed by and the final volume of the biography was no nearer its completion than in 1880. In fact, beyond the selection and ordination of its material, it was scarcely begun. His friends and the lovers of Beethoven the world over grew seriously concerned at the prospect that it would never be completed. Sharing in this concern, the editor of the present edition developed a plan which he thought would enable Thayer to complete the work notwithstanding the disabilities under which he was laboring. He asked the coöperation of Novello, Ewer & Co., of London, and got them to promise to send a capable person to Trieste to act as a sort of literary secretary to Thayer. It was thought that, having all the material for the concluding volume on hand chronologically arranged, he might talk it over with the secretary, but without giving care to the manner of literary presentation. The secretary was then to give the material a proper setting and submit it to Thayer for leisurely revision. Very hopefully, and with feelings of deep gratitude to his friends, the English publishers, the American editor submitted his plan; but Thayer would have none of it. Though unable to work upon the biography for an hour continuously, he yet clung to the notion that some day he would not only finish it but also rewrite the whole for English and American readers. From one of the letters placed at my disposal by Sir George Grove, it appears that subsequently (in 1892) there was some correspondence between an English publisher and Mr. Thayer touching an English edition. The letter was written to Sir George on June 1st, 1895. In it he says: “I then hoped to be able to revise and prepare it (the Beethoven MS.) for publication myself, and was able to begin the labor and arrange with a typewriting woman to make the clean copy. How sadly I failed I wrote you. Since that time the subject has not been renewed between us. I am now compelled to relinquish all hope of ever being able to do the work. There are two great difficulties to be overcome: the one is that all letters and citations are in the original German as they were sent to Dr. Deiters; the other, there is much to be condensed, as I always intended should be for this reason: From the very first chapter to the end of Vol. III, I am continually in conflict with all previous writers and was compelled, therefore, to show in my text that I was right by so using my materials that the reader should be taken along step by step and compelled to see the truth for himself. Had all my arguments been given in notes nine readers out of ten would hardly have read them, and I should have been involved in numberless and endless controversies. Now the case is changed. A. W. T’s novelties are now, with few if any exceptions, accepted as facts and can, in the English edition, be used as such. Besides this, there is much new matter to be inserted and some corrections to be made from the appendices of the three German volumes. The prospect now is that I may be able to do some of this work, or, at all events, go through my MS. page by page and do much to facilitate its preparation for publication in English. I have no expectation of ever receiving any pecuniary recompense for my 40 years of labor, for my many years of poverty arising from the costs of my extensive researches, for my--but enough of this also.” In explanation of the final sentence in this letter it may be added that Thayer told the present writer that he had never received a penny from his publisher for the three German volumes; nothing more, in fact, than a few books which he had ordered and for which the publisher made no charge.