there found Beethoven awaiting him, with the coveted
reply from his lady-love. In this manner Beethoven carried the letters
backward and forward for some five or six weeks--in short, as long as he
remained in the town.

His friendship with Ferdinand Ries commenced in a way which testified
how grateful he was for kindness. When his mother lay ill at Bonn, he
hurried home from Vienna just in time to witness her death. After the
funeral he suffered greatly from poverty, and was relieved by Ries the
violinist. Years afterward young Ries waited on Beethoven with a letter
of introduction from his father. The composer received him with cordial
warmth, and said: "Tell your father I have not forgotten the death of
my mother." Ever afterward he was a helpful and devoted friend to young
Ries, and was of inestimable value in forwarding his musical career.

Beethoven in his poverty never forgot to be generous. At a concert given
in aid of wounded soldiers, where he conducted, he indignantly refused
payment with the words: "Say Beethoven never accepts anything where
humanity is concerned." To an Ursuline convent he gave an entirely new
symphony to be performed at their benefit concert. Friend or enemy
never applied to him for help that he did not freely give, even to the
pinching of his own comfort.

VII.

Rossini could write best when he was under the influence of Italian wine
and sparkling champagne. Paesiello liked the warm bed in which to jot
down his musical notions, and we are told that "it was between the
sheets that he planned the 'Barber of Seville,' the 'Molinara,' and so
many other _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of ease and gracefulness." Mozart could chat
and play at billiards or bowls at the same time that he composed the
most beautiful music. Sacchini found it impossible to write anything of
any beauty unless a pretty woman was by his side, and he was surrounded
by his cats, whose graceful antics stimulated and affected him in a
marked fashion. "Gluck," Bombet says, "in order to warm his imagination
and to transport himself to Aulis or Sparta, was accustomed to place
himself in the middle of a beautiful meadow. In this situation, with his
piano before him, and a bottle of champagne on each side, he wrote in
the open air his two 'Iphigenias,' his 'Orpheus,' and some other
works." The agencies which stimulated Beethoven's grandest thoughts
are eminently characteristic of the man. He loved to let the winds
and storms beat on his b