Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/73

Rh us: "His sociable instincts were not very strong; whence it comes, no doubt, that he was a celibate all his life; it is asserted that he never had any dealings with women." Schmidt, who knew Händel very much better than Hawkins, protests that Händel was not unsociable, but that his frantic craving for independence "made him afraid of belittling himself, and that he had a dread of indissoluble ties."

In default of love he knew and faithfully practised friendship. He inspired the most touching affection, such as that of Schmidt, who left his country and his kin to follow him, in 1726, and never left him again until his death. Some of his friends were among the noblest intellects of the age: such was the witty Dr. Arbuthnot, whose apparent Epicurianism concealed a stoical disdain of mankind, and who, in his last letter to Swift, made this admirable remark: "As for leaving, for the world's sake, the path of virtue and honour, the world is not worth it." Händel had moreover a profound and pious feeling for the family, which was never extinguished, and to which he gave expression in some touching characters, such as Joseph, and the good mother in Solomon.

But the finest, purest feeling of which he was capable was his ardent charity. In a country which witnessed, in the eighteenth century, a magnificent impulse of human solidarity, he was one of those who were most sincerely devoted to the cause of the unfortunate. His generosity was not