I shall remain here for some weeks; so if there is any occasion to write, address to me here.
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF THE SINGER, MDME. AUGUSTE SEBALD.
Who even if you would, Forget you never should.
It was my bounden duty long ago to have recalled myself to Y.R.H.'s recollection, but partly my occupations and the state of my health, as well as my own insignificance, made me reluctant to do so. I missed Y.R.H. by one night only in Prague; for when proceeding to pay my respects to you in the morning, I found you had set off the very night before. In Töplitz I heard a military band four times a day,--the only musical report which I can give you. I was a great deal with Goethe.[1] My physician Staudenheim, however, ordered me off to Carlsbad,[2] and from thence here, and probably I shall have to go back to Töplitz from this. What flights! And yet it seems very doubtful whether any improvement in my condition has hitherto taken place. I receive the best accounts of Y.R.H.'s health, and also of the persistent devotion you exhibit towards the musical Muse. Y.R.H. has no doubt heard of a concert that I gave for the benefit of the sufferers by fire in the Stadt Baden,[3] assisted by Herr Polledro.[4] The receipts were nearly 1000 florins W.W., and if I had not been restricted in my arrangements we might easily have taken 2000 florins. It was literally a _poor concert for the poor_. I could only find at the publisher's here some of my earlier sonatas with violin accompaniments, and as Polledro had set his heart on these, I was obliged to content myself with playing an old Sonata.[5] The entire concert consisted of a trio, in which Polledro played, my Sonata with violin, then again something was played by Polledro, and, lastly, I extemporized. Meanwhile I do sincerely rejoice that by this means something has fallen to the share of the poor _Badeners_. Pray deign to accept my best wishes for your welfare, and my entreaty that you will sometimes think of me.
[Footnote 1: Beethoven speaks very briefly of his meeting with Goethe. Goethe in his _Tag- und Jahrschriften_ of 1812 makes no allusion to Beethoven during his stay at Töplitz. It does not, therefore, appear that either of these master-minds found any particular pleasure in each other when they met personally. Beethoven, indeed, dedicated to "the immortal Goethe" (1812) his composition the _Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt_, but only wrote once to him in 1823 to obtain a subscription from the Grand Duke of Weimar for his Grand Mass, and received no answer from Goethe. In the complete edition of Goethe's works Beethoven's name is only once mentioned by Goethe, when he refers to his funeral obsequies.]