Truth and candor compel the confession, that in those days of prosperity he bore his honors with less of meekness than we could wish; that he had lost something of that modesty and ingenuousness eulogized by Junker ten years before, in his Mergentheim letter. His “somewhat lofty bearing” had even been reported by the correspondent of the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung.” Traces of self-sufficiency and even arrogance--faults almost universal among young and successful geniuses, often in a far higher degree than was true of Beethoven, and with not a tithe of his reason--are unquestionably visible. No one can read without regret his remarks upon certain persons not named, with whom at this very time he was upon terms of apparently intimate friendship. “I value them,” he writes, “only by what they do for me.... I look upon them only as instruments upon which I play when I feel so disposed.” His “somewhat lofty bearing” was matter for jest to the venerable Haydn, who, according to a trustworthy tradition, when Beethoven’s visits to him had become few and far between would inquire of other visitors: “How goes it with our Great Mogul?” Nor would the young nobles, whose society he frequented, take offence; but it certainly made him enemies among those whom he “valued according to their service and looked upon as mere instruments”--and no wonder! Pierson, in his edition of the so-called “Beethoven’s Studien,” has added to Seyfried’s personal sketches a few reminiscences of that Griesinger, who was so long Saxon Minister in Vienna, and to whom we owe the valuable “Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn.” One of his anecdotes is to the purpose here and may be taken as substantially historical. BEETHOVEN’S SELF-ESTEEM INJURED When he was still only an attaché, and Beethoven was little known except as a celebrated pianoforte player, both being still young, they happened to meet at the house of Prince Lobkowitz. In conversation with a gentleman present, Beethoven said in substance, that he wished to be relieved from all bargain and sale of his works, and would gladly find some one willing to pay him a certain income for life, for which he should possess the exclusive right of publishing all he wrote; adding, “and I would not be idle in composition. I believe Goethe does this with Cotta, and, if I mistake not, Handel’s London publisher held similar terms with him.” “My dear young man,” returned the other, “You must not complain; for you are neither a Goethe nor a Handel, and it is not to be expected that you ever will be; for such masters will not be born again.” Beethoven bit his lips, gave a most contemptuous glance at the speaker, and said no more. Lobkowitz endeavored to appease him, and in a subsequent conversation said: