ow arrived he was told that he might extend his stay for
several days longer. When, therefore, he finally returned to Vienna,
it was with a small sum of money jingling in his pockets and a frame
invigorated by a liberal supply of such food as it had not been his
privilege to taste since the day when he quitted the Cantorei of St.
Stephen's.

It was the first gleam of sunshine that had crossed his path since
those happy days, and it served to dispel some of the gloomy
desperation which, during the long, dark days of winter, had laid
constant siege to his resolutions, which had, indeed, once or twice
nearly shaken them from that bed-rock of belief in his own unaided
powers which, coupled with his simple faith in God, had sustained him
and sent him forward from day to day. Often had he lain, shivering and
famished, beneath his scanty coverlet in the corner of the garret
allotted to him, watching the stars shining through the skylight above
his head, and praying, with all the earnestness of a warrior-knight of
the Middle Ages, for strength to battle with the temptation of
despair. If music--the music that raises and ennobles, that
strengthens, and uplifts the soul of man to heights which bring him
nearer and ever nearer to a true conception of God--were destined to
find a voice in Haydn's soul, that music must have owed its inception
to those midnight hours of silent communion--those struggles with
natural want--which were passed beneath the rafters of his miserable
lodging.

And gradually his determination prevailed. The tide of fortune sent
some ripples of success to his feet. A few pupils were induced by the
trifling charge which he made to let him give them lessons on the
clavier; a like desire for economy probably induced others to employ
his services occasionally as violin-player at balls and other
entertainments; whilst one or two aspirants for musical honours
permitted him to undertake the revision and arrangement of their
compositions at a small fee. Such cheering signs of improved
prospects, feeble in themselves, assumed in Haydn's eyes the aspect of
rewards for which he could not be sufficiently grateful.

And then the tide of success came with something like a rush. A worthy
tradesman, named Buchholz, who loved music, and had occasionally
invited Haydn to sing and play to him after business hours, was
touched by his distress, and as a proof of his faith in the struggling
musician's honour, as well as with a