Another phase of this deep, unworldly innocence was the very exhibition of temper that so often brought him into trouble. Sophistication and conformity remove these violences from men’s conduct, and rightly so; often with them is also removed much of the earnestness, the spontaneous tenderness, and the trustfulness of innocence. What but a deeply innocent, unsophisticated mind could have dictated words like these, which were written to Dr. Wegeler, after a misunderstanding: ‘My only consolation is that you knew me almost from my childhood, and--oh, let me say it myself--I was really always of good disposition, and in my dealings always strove to be upright and honest; how, otherwise, could you have loved me.’ Together with this yearning for understanding from his friends was a consciousness also of genius, which was humble, the very opposite of vanity and self-conceit: ‘You will only see me again when I am truly great; not only greater as an artist, but as a man you shall find me better, more perfect’; and again, ‘I am convinced good fortune will not fail me; with whom need I be afraid of measuring my strength?’ This is the language of self-confidence, and also of a nature thoroughly innocent and simple. Still another, and perhaps the most remarkable, phase of his character was a certain boisterous love of fun and high spirits, which betrayed itself on the most unexpected occasions, often in puns, jests, practical jokes, and satiric comment. He was, in fact, an invincible humorist, ready, in season or out of season, with or without decorum, to expend his jocose or facetious pleasantry upon friend or enemy. If he could deliver a home thrust, it was often accompanied with a roar of laughter, and his sense of a joke often overthrew every other consideration. Throwing books, plates, eggs, at the servants, pouring a dish of stew over the head of the waiter who had served him improperly; sending the wisp of goat’s hair to the lady who had asked him for a lock of his own--these were his sardonically jesting retorts to what he considered to be clumsiness or sentimentality. The estimable Schuppanzigh, who in later life grew very fat, was the subject of many a joke. ‘My lord Falstaff’ was one of his nicknames, and a piece of musical drollery exists, scrawled by Beethoven on a blank page of the end of his sonata, opus 28, entitled _Lob an den Dicken_ (Praise to the fat one), which consists of a sort of canon to the words, _Schuppanzigh ist ein Lump, Lump, Lump_, and so on. Beethoven writes to Count von Brunswick: ‘Schuppanzigh is married--they say his wife is as fat as himself--what a family!’ Nicknames are invented for friend and foe: Johann, the _Gutsbesitzer_, is the ‘Brain-eater’ or ‘Pseudo-brother’; his brother’s widow is ‘Queen of the Night,’ and a canon written to Count Moritz Lichnowsky is set to the words, _Bester Herr Graf, du bist ein Schaf!_ Often his humor is in bad taste and frequently out