s contain no word-pictures of scenery or events; nor
do they express his views on questions or matters in which the world
at large might be supposed to take an interest. But they are none the
less valuable on that account; for they reflect the openness and
simplicity of his character, and lay bare his wishes, his hopes and
his disappointments, his joys and his sorrows--and especially his love
of fun--just as one or another of these feelings or aspirations was
uppermost at the moment.

As a teacher Beethoven exhibited none of the carelessness or
impatience that characterised his personal habits. If the rendering of
a passage was not in accordance with his own ideas of what it should
be, he insisted upon the pupil playing it over and over again until he
was satisfied. He was comparatively indifferent to the playing of
wrong notes, but failure on the part of a pupil to give the right
shade of expression, or to grasp the true character of a piece, never
failed to arouse his anger. The one, he would say, might be an
accident, but the other showed a want of knowledge, or feeling, or
attention.

Beethoven was by nature exceedingly unpunctual, and frequently kept
his pupils waiting for their lessons. Even Madame von Breuning, for
whom he had a strong affection, and who was one of the few people who
could be said to have managed him, often failed in persuading him to
be in time. 'Ah! I may not disturb him--he is in his _raptus_,' she
would exclaim despairingly, in allusion to his habit of relapsing into
gloomy reverie. And not even his dearest friend dared to intrude upon
him at such moments. His absent-mindedness was the subject of many a
joke. He often forgot to come home to dinner--a fact which, seeing
that he was a man, deserves to be recorded; and it is even said that,
on one occasion, he insisted on tendering money for a meal which he
had not ordered, under the belief that he had dined. At another time
he composed a set of variations on a Russian dance for the wife of an
officer in the Russian service--a compliment which was acknowledged by
the gift of a horse. Straightway Beethoven forgot all about the horse
until he was reminded of its existence by a long bill presented for
its keep. He persisted in shaving himself at his bedroom window,
without a blind, and exposed to the view of passers-by; and when he
discovered that this habit caused a crowd of jeering idlers to collect
in front of the house, he flew into a rage, a