bed. He was a little man, very dark of skin, and deeply pock-marked, and
he had a large and ugly nose. His lower jaw and under lip projected, and
he had very kindly eyes. He was far from being vain about his personal
appearance, but he took an immense amount of pains with it, for all
that. Ladies ran much after him, too. But he cannot have spared them
much of his time. All who knew him were agreed about his methodical
habits, and we have only to look at a catalogue of his achievements, and
to consider that on every day of the week he had both rehearsals and
concerts, to realize that his entire time must have been eaten up by the
writing of music and the preparation and direction of musical
performances. Undoubtedly he wearied of it at times, though he said
that on the whole it had been good for him, and that by being so much
thrown upon his own resources he had been forced to become original. As
to this, I beg leave to be sceptical; and at any rate his finest work
was done when he was free of his bondage, and actively engaged in the
busy world. There is a note of regret for the irremediable in that
remark of his. It is as if he had said: "True, it was dull, insufferably
tedious, but, after all, it had its compensations." How his band and
singers tolerated the life I cannot tell. They lived together in a sort
of family, but their café meetings at Esterház were a poor substitute
for the distractions of the capital. One might assume that they took
their holidays in turns--for many had wives and children whom they were
obliged to leave behind--but a well-authenticated story destroys that
fond belief. It is the story of the Farewell Symphony. The artists,
wearying of so long a sojourn so far away from home, asked Haydn to
intercede for them with the Prince. Haydn and his folk were always on
the very best of terms, and he did intercede for them, in his own canny
way. He composed a symphony in which, towards the end, player after
player finishes his part, blows out his candle, packs up his instrument,
and leaves the room, until at last one solitary violin is left