attention, and when he was a
little past twelve he was made assistant musical conductor
(cembalist), having to prepare the operas, adapt them to the orchestra
and the players of the theater, and sometimes to train the whole
company for several months together, while Neefe, the director, was
away. All this without salary. In this practical school of adversity
the boy grew up, arranging continually, training the orchestra,
adapting music and composing--for he began this very soon; in fact, we
have certain sonatinas of his, composed while he was but ten years
old.

He was direct in his speech, almost to rudeness, not, like Mozart,
attractive in his personal appearance, and rather awkward in society,
where he was continually breaking things, upsetting the water, the
ink, or whatever liquid was in his way. Nevertheless, there must have
been something attractive about this young man of independent manners,
for very early in life, and all the way through it, he made friends
with the aristocracy. Count Waldstein, a few years his senior, to whom
he afterward dedicated the so-called "Waldstein" sonata, Opus 53, in
C, early became interested in him, hired a piano for him and sent it
to his room, that he might have opportunity to practice. There was a
family of Von Breunings in Bonn, consisting of the mother, three boys
and a daughter, where the young Beethoven often stayed for several
days together. This was one of the most refined families in town, and
it was here that the unfortunate young Beethoven got his first
glimpses of a true home life, and his first realization of the
refining influence of woman's society. He learned English in order
that he might be able to read Shakespeare in the original. He also
learned a little Italian and French. In short, the boy appears at good
advantage from every point of view, except from that of mere
appearance. This life of labor and responsibility was broken in upon
when he was about seventeen (in 1787). He was sent to Vienna, and
there is a tradition that he played there before Mozart, who is
reported to have prophesied favorably concerning him. There is very
little left us concerning his first visit to the great Austrian
capital, then, as ever since, the home of music. He was soon back
again in Bonn, and there for yet another year and a half he went on
with his work. His mother dying, he had no longer any responsibility
to retain him there, so when he was about twenty-one he set out agai