lifelike pictures which my imagination calls up.

"During the whole time since I reached home, few have been my hours of
enjoyment. All this time I have been afflicted with asthma, and the fear
is forced upon me that it may end in consumption. Moreover, the state
of melancholy in which I now am is almost as great a misfortune as my
sickness itself.

"Imagine yourself in my position for a moment, and I doubt not that I
shall receive your forgiveness for my long silence. As to the three
Carolins which you had the extraordinary kindness and friendship to lend
me in Augsburg, I must beg your indulgence still for a time. My journey
has cost me a good deal, and I have no compensation--not even the
slightest--to hope in return. Fortune is not propitious to me here in
Bonn.

"You will forgive me for detaining you so long with my babble; it is all
necessary to my apology. I pray you not to refuse me the continuance of
your valuable friendship, since there is nothing I so much desire as to
make myself in some degree worthy of it. I am, with all respect, your
most obedient servant and friend,

"L. v. BEETHOVEN,

"Court Organist to the Elector of Cologne."

We know also from other sources the extreme poverty in which the
Beethoven family was at this period sunk. In its extremity, at the time
when the mother died, Franz Ries, the violinist, came to its assistance,
and his kindness was not forgotten by Ludwig. When Ferdinand, the son
of this Ries, reached Vienna in the autumn of 1800, and presented his
father's letter, Beethoven said,--"I cannot answer your father yet; but
write and tell him that I have not forgotten the death of my mother.
That will fully satisfy him."

Young Beethoven, therefore, had little time for illness. His father
barely supported himself, and the sustenance of his two little brothers,
respectively twelve and thirteen years of age, devolved upon him. He
was, however, equal to his situation. He played his organ still,--the
instrument which was then above all others to his taste; he entered
the Orchestra as player upon the viola; received the appointment of
chamber-musician--pianist--to the Elector; and besides all this,
engaged in the detested labor of teaching. It proves no small energy
of character, that the motherless youth of seventeen, "afflicted with
asthma," which he was "fearful might end in consumption," struggling
against a "state of melancholy, almost as great a misfortune as sickness
it