he really said them or not. “You say that Shakspeare never meant to express this! What then? his genius meant it!”
The impression Schindler gives of Beethoven differs from that given by Ries or Bettina only in this, that the giant is seen through uncoloured glass; the lineaments are the same in all the three memoirs.
The direction left by Beethoven himself to his biographer is as follows. “Tell the truth with severe fidelity of me and all connected with me, without regard to whom it may hit, whether others or myself.”
He was born 17th Dec. 1770. It is pleasing to the fancy to know that his mother’s name was Maria Magdalena. She died when he was seventeen, so that a cabalistic number repeats itself the magical three times in the very first statement of his destiny.
The first thirty years of his life were all sunshine. His genius was early acknowledged, and princely friends enabled him to give it free play, by providing for his simple wants in daily life. Notwithstanding his uncompromising democracy, which, from the earliest period, paid no regard to rank and power, but insisted that those he met should show themselves worthy as men and citizens, before he would have anything to do with them, he was received with joy into the highest circles of Vienna. Van Swieten, the emperor’s physician, one of those Germans, who, after the labors of the day, find rest in giving the whole night to music, and who was so situated that he could collect round him all that was best in the art, was one of his firmest friends. Prince and Princess Lichnowsky constituted themselves his foster-parents, and were not to be deterred from their wise and tender care by the often perverse and impetuous conduct of their adopted son, who indeed tried them severely, for he was (ein gewaltig natur) “a vehement nature,” that broke through all limits and always had to run his head against a barrier, before he could be convinced of its existence. Of the princess, Beethoven says:
