uine humorist is
always a deep thinker, one who sees all sides of human nature--the great
traits and the petty ones. The poet Lowell has defined humor as
consisting in the contrast of two ideas, and in a Beethoven scherzo the
gay and the pathetic are so intermingled that we are in constant
suspense between laughter and tears. A humorist, furthermore, is a
person of warm heart, who looks with sympathetic affection upon the
incongruities of human nature. In fact, both the expression and the
perception of humor are social acts, as may be seen from the development
of this subject by the philosopher Bergson in his brilliant essay _On
Laughter_. That Beethoven the humorist was closely related to Beethoven
the humanist, and that the expression of humor in his music--something
quite different from the facile wit and cleverness of the Haydn
minuet--was inevitable with him, is clearly proved by the presence of
the same spirit in so many of the letters. Too much stress has been laid
by Beethoven's biographers upon his buffoonery and fondness for
practical jokes. At bottom he was most tender-hearted and sympathetic;
his nature, of volcanic impetuosity, a puzzling mixture of contradictory
emotions. In but very few of his great works is the element of humor
omitted, and its expression ranges all the way from the uproariously
comic to the grimly tragic. Some of his scherzos reveal the same
fantastic caprice which is found in the medieval gargoyles of Gothic
architecture.

Beethoven's letters, then, are to be considered as the first distinct
evidence we have of that change in the musical sense which has brought
about such important developments in the trend of modern music. Just as
in Beethoven's works we generally feel that there is something behind
the notes, and as he is said always to have composed with some poetical
picture in his mind, so the music of our time has become programmistic
in the wide sense of the term, no longer a mere embodiment of the laws
of its own being but charged with vital and dramatic import, closely
related to all artistic expression and to the currents of daily life.
Familiarity with the selection of letters here published cannot fail to
contribute to a deeper enjoyment of Beethoven's music, for through them
we realize that the universality of the artist was the direct
consequence of the emotional breadth of the man. All art is a union of
emotion and intellect, and their perfect balance is the paramount
c