Nobody is likely to expect, he says (Vol. I, 23-24), that an artist who made his way upwards as our Beethoven, although almost confining his activities exclusively to aristocratic circles that upheld him in extraordinary fashion, would remain free from the attacks of his colleagues; on the contrary, the reader will be prepared to see a host of enemies advance against him because of the shining qualities and evidences of genius of our hero, in contrast with the heavy burden of social idiosyncrasies and uncouthness. More than anything else, what seemed least tolerable to his opponents was the notion that his appearance, the excitability which he controlled too little in his intercourse with his colleagues and his lack of consideration in passing judgment were natural accompaniments of genius. His too small toleration of many bizarreries and weaknesses of high society, and on the other hand his severe demand on his colleagues for higher culture, even his Bonn dialect, afforded his enemies more than enough material to revenge themselves on him by evil gossip and slander.... The musicians in Vienna at that time, with a very few exceptions, were lacking, not only in artistic, but also in the most necessary degree of general, education and were as full of the envy of handicraftsmen as the members of the guilds themselves. There was a particular antipathy to all foreigners as soon as they manifested a purpose to make their homes in the imperial city. Schindler might have added that the change had been in no small degree produced through the instructions and example of Beethoven as they acted upon the Czernys, Moscheles and other young admirers of his genius. In short, Beethoven’s instant achievement of a position as artist only paralleled by Mozart and of a social rank which Gluck, Salieri, Haydn had gained only after making their names famous throughout Europe, together with the general impression that the mantle of Mozart had fallen upon him--all this begat bitter envy in those whom his talents and genius overshadowed; they revenged themselves by deriding him for his personal peculiarities and by condemning and ridiculing the novelties in his compositions; while he met their envy with disdain, their criticisms with contempt; and, when he did not treat their compositions with indifference, but too often only noticed them with sarcasm.