since she is completely tamed. Besides, she has promised to conduct herself properly.” Other matters are discussed and then Johann writes: “It looks to me as if you did not want to come because it will not cost you anything. Who will look after our household affairs? Who will endure our humors?” In another book Karl writes that Johann had often said that his brother could have everything for nothing at Gneixendorf. [156] Page 77 _et seq._ The article was based largely on information gathered by Mr. Thayer at Gneixendorf in 1860 and had been submitted to him for revision. [157] Third class is what is talked about in the Conversation Books. [158] Holz told Jahn that Schlesinger had bought it for 80 ducats and sent 360 florins in payment; whereupon Beethoven had said “If a Jew sends circumcised ducats he shall have a circumcised Quartet. That’s the reason it is so short.” Chapter IX Karl van Beethoven--A Wayward Ward and an Unwise Guardian--Beethoven and His Nephew--An Ill-advised Foster-father and a Graceless, Profligate Nephew--Effect on Beethoven’s Character of the Guardianship--An Unsuccessful Attempt at Self-destruction--Karl is Made a Soldier. We are now to learn of the calamitous consequences of Beethoven’s effort to be a foster-father to the son of his dead brother Kaspar. The tale is one that has been fruitful of fiction in most of the writings which have dealt with the life-history of the great composer; nor is the circumstance to be wondered at. There is still some obscurity in the story, and if there is anything in the melancholy lot of the great man, next to his supreme affliction, calculated to challenge the pity of the world, it is the manner in which his efforts to attach to himself the one human being for whom he felt affection were requited. There is no more pitiful picture in the history of great men than that presented by his devotion to the lad in whom, for a reason which must have seemed to him more inscrutable than his own physical calamity, he could not inspire a spark of love or a scintilla of gratitude. It was an unwise devotion and an ill-directed effort, but that does not alter the case. From the beginning, all of his friends recognized Beethoven’s unfitness for the office of guardian of his nephew. He was incapacitated for it by his occupation, his irregular mode of life, his lack of understanding of a child’s nature, his irresolute mind, his infirmities of temper, and the wretchedness of his domestic surroundings due to his ignorance of and indifference to the things essential to the amenities and comforts of social life. He did not assume the guardianship in a spirit of gentle obedience to a dying brother’s request; he violently wrested it unto himself alone in defiance of that brother’s last entreaties. There can be no doubt but that he believed that in doing so he was performing a pious duty toward his own flesh and blood and acting for the good of the