s the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I
can still learn. Bring me the books!")

112. "Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover
my head and kneel on his grave."

(Fall of 1823, to J. A. Stumpff, harp maker of London, who acted very
nobly toward Beethoven in his last days. It was he who rejoiced the
dying composer by sending him the forty volumes of Handel's works (see
111).)

["Cipriani Potter, to A. W. T., February 27, 1861. Beethoven used to
walk across the fields to Vienna very often. B. would stop, look about
and express his love for nature. One day Potter asked: 'Who is the
greatest living composer, yourself excepted?' Beethoven seemed puzzled
for a moment, and then exclaimed: 'Cherubini!' Potter went on: 'And of
dead authors?' B.--He had always considered Mozart as such, but since he
had been made acquainted with Handel he put him at the head." From A.
W. Thayer's notebook, reprinted in "Music and Manners in the Classical
Period," page 208. H.E.K.]

113. "Heaven forbid that I should take a journal in which sport is made
of the manes of such a revered one."

(Conversation-book of 1825, in reference to a criticism of Handel.)

114. "That you are going to publish Sebastian Bach's works is something
which does good to my heart, which beats in love of the great and lofty
art of this ancestral father of harmony; I want to see them soon."

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)

115. "Of Emanuel Bach's clavier works I have only a few, yet they must
be not only a real delight to every true artist, but also serve him for
study purposes; and it is for me a great pleasure to play works that I
have never seen, or seldom see, for real art lovers."

(July 26, 1809, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig in ordering all the
scores of Haydn, Mozart and the two Bachs.)

116. "See, my dear Hummel, the birthplace of Haydn. I received it as a
gift today, and it gives me great pleasure. A mean peasant hut, in which
so great a man was born!"

(Remarked on his death-bed to his friend Hummel.)

117. "I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of
Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death."

(February 6, 1886, to Abbe Maximilian Stadler, who had sent him his
essay on Mozart's "Requiem.")

118. "Cramer, Cramer! We shall never be able to compose anything like
that!"

(To Cramer, after the two had heard