|
It was indeed a poor home into which Haydn had been born; but
tenderness, piety, thrift and orderliness were there, and
probably the happiest part of his career was that which he spent
in the tiny, dim-lighted rooms within sound of Leitha's waters.
In later life, when his name had been inscribed on the roll of
fame, he looked back to the cottage at Rohrau, "sweet through
strange years," with a kind of mingled pride and pathetic regret.
Flattered by the great and acclaimed by the devotees of his art,
he never felt ashamed of his lowly origin. On the contrary, he
boasted of it. He was proud, as he said, of having "made
something out of nothing." He does not seem to have been often at
Rohrau after he was launched into the world, a stripling not yet
in his teens. But he retained a fond memory of his birthplace.
When in 1795 he was invited to inspect a monument erected to his
honour in the grounds of Castle Rohrau, he knelt down on the
threshold of the old home by the market-place and kissed the
ground his feet had trod in the far-away days of youth. When he
came to make his will, his thoughts went back to Rohrau, and one
of his bequests provided for two of its poorest orphans.
|
|
