Thirty-one! At this age a man feels life at its best; it is then that his pulse beats strongest, that, his powers being fully developed, he sees the years stretch smiling before him, like the vision of a promised land. All this Beethoven felt, and he was fully conscious of his power. “The Eroica,” the great ‘C Minor,’ “The Choral Symphony,” “Fidelio,” locked within that mighty brain, awaited only the master’s bidding to come forth and delight a world. But between him and this glorious future there fell a shadow which was destined to rob life of all that made life dear. He plainly saw that shadow. In a letter to a friend, written at this time, he says, “How sadly must I live! All that I love I must avoid. The years will pass without bringing that which my talent and my art had promised. Mournful resignation, in which alone I can find refuge!” Already the gates of his ears were closing, and deafness was shutting him out from the world which he had just begun to love. Then he met the beautiful Countess Julie Guicciardi. She was sixteen, she was poor, and he gave her music lessons without payment, accepting only in return linen which her pretty fingers had stitched. She was flattered by his homage (what girl would not be flattered by the homage of a Beethoven!) and she encouraged his attentions. Perhaps even she really loved him. Again he wrote to a friend: “Somewhat more agreeably I live now, going more among people. This change has been wrought by a dear, bewitching girl, who loves me and whom I love. At last after two years’ misery, some happy moments have come, and I feel for the first time that marriage could make me happy.” Poor Beethoven! Countess Julie’s father had other plans for his young daughter, and her music master was scornfully dismissed. The mental conflict of this period found expression in the “Fantasie Sonate.” The mournful resignation of the first movement contrasts vividly with the thunder of the finale. In a letter to his friend Wegeler, Beethoven now wrote:—“If nothing else is possible I will defy my fate, though moments will always come in which I shall be the wretchedest of men.” He spoke so much more eloquently in music than he did in words, that I should like to take my readers to the piano and tell his story there. But let us beware of playing the Sonate _romantically_. In interpreting an emotional work this is a danger which must always be carefully avoided. We should not repeat the poet’s story as it affects us, but as it affected him. The resignation of the first movement must be the resignation of a strong nature—there is fire beneath it. A Beethoven does not shed tears. In the second movement the poet conjures up before his mind the memory of happy hours, gone for ever. His child-love appears before him in all her grace and witchery. There must be something phantom-like about it, something very tender, almost intangible.