Beethoven’s friendships were often marked by periods of storm, and many who were once proud to be in his favored circle afterward became weary of his eccentricities, or were led away to newer interests. It was hard for him to understand some of the most obvious rules of social conduct, and impossible for him to control his tongue or temper. Close and well-tried friends, falling under his suspicion or arousing his anger, were in the morning forbidden his house, roundly denounced, and treated almost like felons; in the afternoon, with a return of calmness and reason, he would write to them remorseful letters, beg their forgiveness, and plead for a continuance of their affection. Often the remorse was out of all proportion to his crime. After a quarrel with Stephan von Breuning he sends his portrait with the following message: ‘My dear, good Stephan--Let what for a time passed between us lie forever hidden behind this picture. I know it, I have broken _your heart_. The emotion which you must certainly have noticed in me was sufficient punishment for it. It was not a feeling of _malice_ against you; no, for then I should be no longer worthy of your friendship. It was passion on your part and on mine--but mistrust of you arose in me. Men came between us who are not worthy either of you or of me ... faithful, good, and noble Stephan. Forgive me if I did hurt your feelings; I was not less a sufferer myself through not having you near me during such a long period; then only did I really feel how dear to my heart you are and ever will be.’ Too apologetic and remorseful, maybe; but still breathing a kind of stubborn pride under its genuine and sincere affection. Although Goethe and Beethoven met at least once, they did not become friends. The poet was twenty-one years the elder, and was too much the gentleman of the world to like outward roughness and uncouth manners in his associates. He had, moreover, no sympathy with Beethoven’s rather republican opinions. On the other hand, Beethoven had something of the peasant’s intolerance for the courtier and fine gentleman. ‘Court air,’ he writes in 1812, ‘suits Goethe more than becomes a poet. One cannot laugh much at the ridiculous things that virtuosi do, when poets, who ought to be looked upon as the principal teachers of the nation, forget everything else amidst this glitter.’