They met at a Bohemian spa, Töplitz, in 1812, but did not agree well. Beethoven passionately admired Goethe's genius; but his own character was too free and too wild not to wound the susceptibilities of Goethe. Beethoven himself has told us of this walk which they took together, in the course of which the haughty republican gave the courtly councillor of the Grand-duke of Weimar a lesson in dignity which he never forgot.
"Kings and princes can easily make professors and privy councillors; they can bestow titles and decorations, but they cannot make great men, or minds which rise above the base turmoil of this world . . . . and when two men are together such as Goethe and myself these fine gentlemen must be made conscious of the difference between ourselves and them. Yesterday, as we were returning home on foot, we met the whole of the Imperial family. We saw them approaching from a distance. Goethe let go my arm to take his stand by the road side with the crowd. It was in vain that I talked to him. Say what I would I could not get him to move a single step. I drew my hat down upon my
German translation) and we know with what tragic grandeur he has set Coriolanus and the Tempest in music. Plutarch continually, as did all who were in favour of the revolution. Brutus was his hero, as was also the case with Michael Angelo; he had a small statue of him in his bedroom. He loved Plato, and dreamed of establishing his republic in in the whole world. "Socrates and Jesus have been my models," he wrote once on his notebooks (Conversations during 1819 and 1820).
