for discovering talent in others. He brought Czerny, at the
age of ten years, to Beethoven, who immediately recognized his genius,
and offered to give him lessons. That Beethoven deeply felt the loss of
his old friend and teacher is evidenced by his writing music to the Song
of the monks,

Rasch tritt der Tod den Menschen an,

from Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, in commemoration of him.

CHAPTER XII

SENSE OF HUMOR

In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis.
--MOTTO OF GIORDANO BRUNO.

Beethoven did not have much in the way of enjoyment, as the word is
generally understood, to compensate him for the pain of existence. The
resources vouchsafed others in this respect, family affection, love,
friendship, generally failed him when put to the test. Out of harmony
with the general order of things in the material world, the point in
which he could best come to an understanding with his fellow-creatures
was by the exercise of his sense of humor. The circumstances of his life
tended to make a pessimist of him. He did not understand the world and
was misunderstood in return. To counteract the tendency toward
pessimism, his resource was to develop his sense of humor, to create an
atmosphere of gayety, by which he was enabled to meet people on a common
plane. But not only in the ordinary affairs of life does it stand him in
good stead, this sense of humor. It comes out finely in his creative
work in the sonatas and the Scherzo movements of his symphonies. He
originated, invented the Scherzo, developing it from the simple minuet
of the earlier composers. The primary object of the Scherzo was
recreation pure and simple. It was introduced with the object of resting
the mind.

The evolution of humor in music is an interesting subject of study. It
is something foreign to it, an exotic, of slow growth, gaining but
little in the hands of the earlier composers from Bach on. Even with
Haydn it never advanced much beyond geniality. They had essayed it
chiefly in the minuet, but succeeded only in producing something
stately, in which the element of fun or humor, to modern ways of
thinking is hardly appreciable. It found a sudden and wonderful
expansion, an efflorescence in Beethoven, with whom every phase of the
art was developed to colossal proportions. He has made of the Scherzo a
movement of such importance that it lends a distinctive character to his
symphonies. In this