Beethoven and his "Immortal Beloved"
One day when Baron Spaun, an old Viennese character and a friend of Beethoven's, entered the composer's lodgings, he found the man, every line of whose face denoted, above all else, strength of character, bending over a portrait of a woman and weeping, as he muttered, "You were too good, too angelic!" A moment later, he had thrust the portrait into an old chest and, with a toss of his well-set head, was his usual self again.
As Spaun was leaving, he said to the composer, "There is nothing evil in your face to-day, old fellow."
"My good angel appeared to me this morning," was Beethoven's reply.
