g inscription scrawled upon the back: 'L. van
Beethoven, Hirnbesitzer' (Brain proprietor). Some of his jokes,
however, were in extremely bad taste. On one occasion a lady admirer
preferred a request for a lock of his hair as a keepsake, and he sent
her instead a wisp cut from the beard of a goat! With his inordinate
love of joking, however, he was a poor hand at bearing a joke that
told against himself. It is related that, having once been rude enough
to interrupt a player named Himmel in the midst of the latter's
improvisation by asking when he was going to begin, Himmel afterwards
wrote to him that 'the latest invention in Berlin was a lantern for
the blind'--a joke which Beethoven not only failed to see, but 'when
it was pointed out to him he was furious, and would have nothing more
to do with his correspondent.'

His carelessness in matters of dress was very noticeable. Czerny, his
pupil, has described how he found him at home on his first visit, with
his shock of black hair and his unshaven chin, and his ears stuffed
with cotton-wool, whilst his clothes seemed to be made of so rough a
material, and were so ill-fitting that he resembled nothing so much as
a Robinson Crusoe. It is related that once, when he was engaging a
servant, the man stated as a reason for leaving his last situation
that he failed to dress his master's hair to the latter's
satisfaction. 'It is no object to me to have my hair dressed,'
remarked Beethoven, as he signified his approval of the engagement. He
always described himself as 'a disorderly creature,' and he certainly
merited the designation. He was clumsy and awkward in his movements;
he could not shave without cutting himself, or handle delicate things
without breaking them; and whilst composing he invariably spilt the
ink over the pianoforte. His handwriting was so illegible as to call
forth objurgations from himself whenever he was called upon to
decipher it. 'Yesterday,' he writes to a friend, 'I took a letter
myself to the post office, and was asked where it was meant to go to;
from which I see that my writing is as often misunderstood as I am
myself,' Nevertheless, he was very fond of letter-writing, as the
collections which have been preserved abundantly testify.

The letters of great men are often valued for the opinions they
contain on persons and subjects of the day, as well as for the insight
they afford into the private thoughts and feelings of the writers.
Beethoven's letter