HIS GENEROSITY

Of his generosity and his kindness to fellow artists there are many proofs. In 1800 he speaks of himself as having "willingly endeavoured all my life to assist everyone," and the words were no empty boast. No man was, in fact, more ready to perform a good deed. He had many needy relations always looking to him for aid, and their claims were seldom refused. A brother artist in distress was sure of help, and talented young men found in him a valuable friend, equally ready to give his advice or his gold, as the case might require. That he was sometimes imposed upon goes without saying. He has been charged with avarice, but the charge is wholly unfounded. He was simply careful in money matters, and that, to a large extent, because of the demands that were constantly being made upon him. In commercial concerns he was certainly sharp and shrewd, and attempts to take advantage of him always roused his indignation. "By heavens!" he writes to Artaria, "you have wronged me to the extent of fifty ducats.... This step must cause the cessation of all transactions between us." The same firm, having neglected to answer some business proposition, were pulled up in this fashion: "I have been much provoked by the delay, inasmuch as I could have got forty ducats from another publisher for these five pieces, and you make too many difficulties about a matter by which, in such short compositions, you have at least a thirty fold profit. The sixth piece has long had its companion, so pray make an end of the affair and send me either my music or my money."

The Haydn of these fierce little notes is not the gentle recluse we are apt to imagine him. They show, on the contrary, that he was not wanting in spirit when occasion demanded. He was himself upright and honest in all his dealings. And he never forgot a kindness, as more than one entry in his will abundantly testifies. He was absolutely without malice, and there are several instances of his repaying a slight with a generous deed or a thoughtful action. His practical tribute to the memory of Werner, who called him a fop and a "scribbler of songs," has been cited. His forbearance with Pleyel, who had allowed himself to be pitted against him by the London faction, should also be recalled; and it is perhaps worth mentioning further that he put himself to some trouble to get a passport for Pleyel during the long wars of the French Revolution. He carried his kindliness and gentleness even into "the troubled region of artistic life," and made friends where other men would have made foes.