the first rank. Hence his habitual mien was restless, perturbed, or passionately eager.
In character he was the soul of truth and honor, but given to freakish misunderstandings and resentments. His temper varied from warm affection for his friends to unreasonable aversion and abuse. He was excessively sensitive to both condescension and fancied slights, and was liable to go off into a rage on imaginary provocations. His manners were often uncouth, his speech uncontrolled and his actions sometimes violent. Yet the force and nobility of his manliness were obvious, so that he fastened to himself not only the respect, but the affection, of numerous intelligent friends. Latent within him was a wealth of love and devotion which he longed to expend, but which never found an object on which to rest. Temperamentally religious in a high degree, he was so uninstructed that his only creed was a curious catena of pantheistic propositions, while his practical action was governed by the simplest elemental instincts of uprightness.
His physical and mental constitution involved him in ceaseless contradiction and struggle. Doubtless he inherited bodily infirmities, which were intensified by irregular living, so that his body and mind reacted unfortunately upon each other. Yet even in his worst conflicts there was something heroic and sublime about him. Of this higher or deeper nature his music was verily the voice, so vital and commanding that to it all the world was forced to listen.
169. Salient Features of his Style.—One of the most striking
characteristics of Beethoven's work is the difference between
his earlier and his later style. This difference is not simply
due to the ordinary growth in mastery on the part of one who
starts as a scholar, for even the earliest style is masterly in its
way. It is rather the expression of profound psychical changes,
which induced him to attempt ever new methods of utterance.
That which throws greatest light upon this process is the existence of
a long line of 'sketch-books,' recording more or less clearly the steps
through which he approached almost all of his significant works.
Although somewhat analogous cases of artistic growth may be cited, in
none of them is the degree of change so extraordinary or the process of
it so minutely traceable.
It has long been customary to classify his work under three
successive 'manners.' Beethoven himself recognized the transitions
between these, and they have been extensively elaborated
by historians and critics. The division is useful, if not defined
too sharply by mere dates. In external form, the works of the
first period closely follow the orderly methods of Mozart, those
of the second present increasing impulsive deviations from strict
regularity—abrupt shifts, expanded episodes, a marked tendency
