through his
devotion to Beethoven, paid particular attention to Karl, and the boy
made rapid progress. He accompanied his uncle on visits to other houses,
by the latter's desire, with the object of forming his taste and
stimulating his ambition for the art.

From the start Beethoven planned a fine career for his nephew. "The boy
must be an artist or a savant that he may lead a noble life," he said
once. On another occasion, when the youth was about eighteen years of
age, he said, on introducing him to a visitor, "you can ask him a riddle
in Greek if you like." "My wishes and efforts have no other aim than
that the boy may receive the best possible education," he wrote when
contending in the Court of Appeals for possession of the boy, "as his
capacity warrants the indulgence of the best hopes for his future, and
that the expectation, which his father built upon my fraternal love may
be fulfilled. The shoot is still flexible; but if more time be wasted it
will grow crooked for want of the training hand of the gardener, and
good conduct, intellect, and character, may be lost forever. I know no
more sacred duty than the superintendence of the education of a child.
The duty of guardianship can only consist in this--to appreciate what is
good, and to take such measures as are conformable with the object in
view."

The young man cared but little for this solicitude. In his uncle's home
he had to study, listen to many a lecture perhaps, and do many a thing
that he did not like to do. When with his mother it was different;
spending-money was to be had while there and in general an easy time. No
wonder that he preferred being with her. Later, when he entered the
university he absented himself as much as possible from his uncle's
house. Beethoven had centred his affections on the young man, and, when
he remained indifferent, irresponsive, it caused him the keenest
anguish. The master's letters to him from Baden are pathetic. "In what
part of me am I not injured and torn?" "My continued solitude only still
further enfeebles me, and really my weakness often amounts to a swoon.
Oh! do not further grieve me, for the man with the scythe (_Sensenman_)
will grant me no long delay." His journal entries on this account, are
the utterances of a creature at bay; of a being in the last extremity.
"O! hoere stets Unaussprechlicher, hoere mich deinen ungluecklichen
ungluecklichsten aller Sterblichen."

It was not alone the necessity for stud