his operas above all other works for the stage; that he took a more lively interest in one of his new compositions than in his own; that he honored and loved him; that if it were not for his deafness, he would go to Paris that he might see him; and he begged him to consider him as worthy of ranking in the number of true artists. Of Handel he said, and shortly before his death, "This is the incomparable master, the master of masters. Go to him, and learn how to produce, with few means, effects that are like a thunder-clap." [Illustration: PEN AND INK SKETCH OF BEETHOVEN As he appeared on the streets of Vienna; drawn by J.P. Lyser, probably about 1820-25.] [Illustration: An ancient Egyptian inscription found in a temple at Saïs, dedicated to the Goddess Neith, which impressed Beethoven so much that he copied it, as above, and kept it framed under glass on his desk.] But no collection of Beethoviana, no affidavits to the truth of anecdotes and conversations, no photographic, no phonographic record of his daily life can give a just idea of the character of this extraordinary man. Its grandeur, titanic in its aspirations, is best seen or felt in the music that was to him the true organ of speech. To comprehend, to appreciate Beethoven, the full knowledge of his compositions is necessary; and to the temperament of the composer must be added the corresponding temperament of a fit hearer. The Beethoven that has voiced the longings, the joys and the sorrows of humanity was not merely the man who walked in the streets of Vienna, not even the being to whom each tree sang the trisagion. The petty failings and the personal virtues of the individual assume in his music gigantic, supernatural proportions. In his life passion, tenderness, pride, arrogance, despair, tumultuous joy, fancy that was at times grotesque, gayety that often was clowning were strangely mingled; just as in "King Lear" the broken-hearted old man and the faithful fool defy together the raging of the elements. To the easy-going, amour-hunting citizen of Vienna Beethoven no doubt appeared, as to Rochlitz, "a very able man, reared on a desert island and suddenly brought fresh into the world," But to the faithful student of his life and works he seems one of the great high-priests of humanity. To the Beethoven of later years, shut off from the world, lonely and full of sorrow, the conceiver of unearthly music such as was never heard before, the sonorous hymn of the Opium Eater over the mystery known among men as Shakespeare might well be chanted: