ed intention of obliterating Gluck's fame.
Great as his genius was, he might have had a harder fight for justice
but for his firm friend at court. He always had access to the queen, and
was always accorded more respect at court than his rivals, Piccini or
Sacchini. Realizing the worth of his own works, he often laid himself
open to the charge of conceit, but the queen was ever ready to defend
him warmly.

Marie Antoinette was herself a composer, and no doubt Gluck's early
tuition was responsible for her musical attainments. Hers was not the
rank nor the period in which a woman could attempt to work in the larger
forms, but her songs were eminently successful. One of those, since made
familiar by a more modern setting, is reproduced for the benefit of the
reader. Its grace and charm will speak for themselves.

With Haydn and Mozart ranking among the married men, the next tonal
master who claims attention is the great Beethoven. He was a mental
giant endowed with intense emotional vigour,--hearing inwardly the
beautiful strains that he wrote down, dreaming of the millennium and
human brotherhood, and expressing in the most heartfelt terms his
yearning for the one and only love who would share his lot with him. Yet
when we come to search for this one and only love, we find that her name
is legion. We also find that Beethoven remained single through it all,
and never won a helpmate to guide his destinies and curb his
eccentricities. His love for women was pure and sincere, if not lasting,
and many indications of the strength of his passion are to be found in
the great works that bear his name.

That Beethoven stood in sore need of a wife to regulate his personal
habits may well be assumed. Probably there never was a lodger who was
more constantly in trouble than this irritable and absent-minded genius.
Wholly absorbed in his music, he never seemed to realize that thumping
the piano at all hours of the day and night might prove disagreeable to
his fellow boarders. Even when not playing, he would think out his great
themes, and fall into a fit of abstraction that might last for hours. He
would stand beating the time, or he would pace the room shouting out his
melodies with full voice. As an antidote to this excitement, he would
pour water over his hands at frequent intervals, regardless of the
damage to the floor and the ceiling below. He was fond of taking long
walks, which he would not omit in wet weather, and when he ret