commanding than are known in regions of cheerful light, can we wish him a happier life? He has been baptized with fire, others only with water. He has given all his life and won the holy sepulchre and a fragment, at least, of the true cross. The solemn command, the mighty controul of various forces which makes us seem to hear
“Time flowing in the middle of the night,
“And all things (rushing) to the day of doom,”
the searching through all the caverns of life for the deepest thought, and the winged uprise of feeling when it is attained; were not these wonders much aided by the calamity, which took this great genius from the outward world, and forced him to concentrate just as he had attained command of his forces?
Friendly affection, indeed, was not wanting to the great master; but who could be his equal friend? It was impossible; he might have found a love, but could not a friend in the same century with himself. But men were earnest to serve and women to venerate him. Schindler, as well as others, devoted many of the best years of life to him. A beautiful trait of affection is mentioned of the Countess Marie Erdödy, a friend dear to Beethoven, who, in the park which surrounds her Hungarian palace, erected a temple which she dedicated to him.
Beethoven had two brothers. The one, Johann, seems to have been rather stupid and selfish than actively bad. The character of his mind is best shown by his saying to the great master, “you will never succeed as well as I have.” We have all, probbably, in memory instances where the reproving angel of the family, the one whose thinking mind, grace, and purity, may possibly atone for the worthless lives of all the rest, is spoken of as the unsuccessful member, because he has not laid up treasures there where moth or rust do corrupt, and ever as we hear such remarks, we are tempted to answer by asking, “what is the news from Sodom and Gomorrah?” But the farce of Beethoven’s not
