ty of
contradicting such a charge even if there were a scintilla of evidence
to support it; a drinker is not necessarily a dishonorable man, least of
all a musician who drinks. But, the fact of the matter is that it is
not true. If once Beethoven wrote a merry note about merrymaking with
friends, let us rejoice that occasions did sometimes occur, though but
rarely, when the heart of the sufferer was temporarily gladdened.

He was a strict moralist, as is particularly evidenced by the notes in
his journal which have not been made public. In many things which befell
him in his daily life he was as ingenuous as a child. His personality,
on the whole, presented itself in such a manner as to invite the
intellectual and social Philistine to call him a fool.

160. "I shall print a request in all the newspapers that henceforth all
artists refrain from painting my picture without my knowledge; I never
thought that my own face would bring me embarrassment."

(About 1803, to Christine Gerardi, because without his knowledge a
portrait of him had been made somewhere--in a cafe, probably.)

161. "Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the
art of music; I should yet conquer Napoleon!"

(To Krumpholz, the violinist, when he informed Beethoven of the victory
of Napoleon at Jena.)

162. "If I were a general and knew as much about strategy as I, a
composer, know about counterpoint, I'd give you fellows something to
do."

(Called out behind the back of a French officer, his fist doubled,
on May 12, 1809, when the French had occupied Vienna. Reported by a
witness, W. Rust.)

163. "Camillus, if I am not mistaken, was the name of the Roman who
drove the wicked Gauls from Rome. At such a cost I would also take the
name if I could drive them wherever I found them to where they belong."

(To Pleyel, publisher, in Paris, April, 1807.)

164. "I love most the realm of mind which, to me, is the highest of all
spiritual and temporal monarchies."

(To Advocate Kauka in the summer of 1814. He had been speaking about the
monarchs represented in the Congress of Vienna.)

165. "I shall not come in person, since that would be a sort of
farewell, and farewells I have always avoided."

(January 24, 1818, to Giannatasio del Rio, on taking his nephew Karl out
of the latter institute.)

166. "I hope still to bring a few large works into the world, and
then, like an ol