Allusion has already been made to the acquaintance which he formed with Goethe this summer.  That Beethoven had the highest esteem for the poet, there is no doubt.  In speaking of him in after years, he said, “Who can thank sufficiently a great poet?  He is the most precious jewel of the nation” (kostbarste Kleinod einer Nation), which is much like Carlyle’s remark on the great poet.  “The appearance of such a man (Goethe) at any given era, is in my opinion the greatest thing that can happen in it.  A man who has the soul to think and be the moral guide of his own nation and of the whole world.”  Goethe and Beethoven were on friendly terms and saw a good deal of one another during this summer.  The acquaintance must have made a powerful impression on Beethoven.  Goethe, the senior by many years, whose transcendent intellect had won him a world-wide reputation, was no doubt the cynosure of all eyes.  Toeplitz was full of notabilities.  Thayer gives a long list of prominent persons, from royalty down, who sojourned there this summer.  It must have been a very agreeable experience to the younger genius, whose fame had not yet penetrated much beyond Germany, this friendship.  Had he possessed a tithe of the worldly wisdom of the elder man, and had regulated his conduct in accordance with the prejudices of the other, the friendship might have continued.  Much as he desired this, it does not seem to have occurred to him to even try to make a good impression.  Utterly lacking in self-control, he remained the same headstrong impulsive creature, while in Goethe’s company, that he had always been.  Whether or not the story is true of his meeting the Imperial family while with Goethe and disdaining even to answer their salutations, walking on and compelling the party to divide so as to give him the middle of the walk, while Goethe stood aside bowing low with uncovered head,—­it is nevertheless more than probable that Beethoven showed his scorn for conventionality in numerous ways, thereby calling down on himself Goethe’s disapproval.  Born courtier that he was, it must have been mortifying in the extreme to him to be with Beethoven and witness his rudeness and contempt for appearances.

So far as known, Goethe never had anything more to do with him after this summer.  On leaving Toeplitz he writes to Zelter, Director of the Berlin Singakademie, mentioning Beethoven casually or as an afterthought, and alludes to him as an “entirely untamed (ungebaendigt) person.”  From this time on, he seems to have excluded him from his thoughts.  Beethoven’s music was frequently performed at Goethe’s house at Weimar.  We read in “Eckermann’s Conversations” that on such occasions the company would relate incidents from Beethoven’s life, but Goethe never mentioned him.