A few days or weeks, then, before completing his twenty-second year, Beethoven entered Vienna a second time, to enjoy the example and instructions of him who was now universally acknowledged the head of the musical world; to measure his powers upon the piano-forte with the greatest virtuosos then living; to start upon that career, in which, by unwearied labor, indomitable perseverance, and never-tiring effort,—­alike under the smiles and the frowns of fortune, in sickness and in health, and in spite of the saddest calamity which can befall the true artist, he elevated himself to a position, which, by every competent judge, is held to be the highest yet attained in perhaps the grandest department of pure music.

Beethoven came to Vienna in the full vigor of youth just emerging into manhood.  The clouds which had settled over his childhood had all passed away.  All looked bright, joyous, and hopeful.  Though, perhaps, wanting in some of the graces and refinements of polite life, it is clear, from his intimacy with the Breuning family, his consequent familiarity with the best society at Bonn, the unchanging kindness of Count Waldstein, the explicit testimony of Junker, that he was not, could not have been, the young savage which some of his blind admirers have represented him.  The bare supposition is an insult to his memory.  That his sense of probity and honor was most acute, that he was far above any, the slightest, meanness of thought or action, of a noble and magnanimous order of mind, utterly destitute of any feeling of servility which rendered it possible for him to cringe to the rich and the great, and that he ever acted from a deep sense of moral obligation,—­all this his whole subsequent history proves.  His merit, both as an artist and a man, met at once full recognition.

And here for the present we leave him, moving in Vienna, as in Bonn, in the higher circles of society, in the full sunshine of prosperity, enjoying all that his ardent nature could demand of esteem and admiration in the saloons of the great, in the society of his brother artists, in the popular estimation.

* * * * *

A WORD TO THE WISE.

    Love hailed a little maid,
  Romping through the meadow: 
    Heedless in the sun she played,
  Scornful of the shadow. 
    “Come with me,” whispered he;
  “Listen, sweet, to love and reason.” 
    “By and by,” she mocked reply;
      “Love’s not in season.”

    Years went, years came;
  Light mixed with shadow. 
    Love met the maid again,
  Dreaming through the meadow. 
    “Not so coy,” urged the boy;
  “List in time to love and reason.” 
    “By and by,” she mused reply;
      “Love’s still in season.”

    Years went, years came;
  Light changed to shadow. 
    Love saw the maid again,
  Waiting in the meadow. 
    “Pass no more; my dream is o’er;
  I can listen now to reason.” 
    “Keep thee coy,” mocked the boy;
      “Love’s out of season.”