creature! When Cato
exclaimed, with regard to Caesar, "This man and myself!" what can be done
in such a case? I don't send the letter, for it will be time enough a
couple of days hence. It is too late to-day. I impress my love, as with a
seal, on your affectionate attachment to me. If you are likely to miss your
work by coming here, then stay where you are.

As ever, your loving and anxious

FATHER.

Three times over:
________________
|: Come soon! :|

438.

TO THE COPYIST.[1]

Read _violino 2do_--the passage in the first _Allegretto_ in the 1st
violin--thus:--

[Music: Treble clef, sixteenth notes.] &c.

So write it in this way; in the first _Allegretto_, mark the signs of
expression in all the four parts:

[Music: Treble and Bass clefs.]

The notes are all right; so do not misunderstand me.

Now, my good friend, as to your mode of writing--_obbligatissimo_; but the
signs [Music: piano crescendo decrescendo] &c., are shamefully neglected,
and often, very often, in the wrong place, which is no doubt owing to
haste. For Heaven's sake impress on Kempel [a copyist] to copy everything
just as it stands; look carefully over my present corrections, and you will
find all that you have to say to him. When [Music: staccato mark] is put
over a note, [Music: staccatissimo mark] is not to take its place, and
_vice versa_. It is not the same thing to write [Music: three staccatissimo
quarter notes] and [Music: three staccato quarter notes]. The [Music:
crescendo] are often purposely placed after the notes. For
instance:--[Music: three notes, decrescendo on second note]. The ties to be
just as they are now placed. It is not synonymous to write [Music: three
notes, slurred] or thus [Music: three notes, slur over first two notes].
Such is our will and pleasure! I have passed no less than the whole
forenoon to-day, and yesterday afternoon, in correcting these two pieces,
and I am actually quite hoarse from stamping and swearing.

In haste, yours,

BEETHOVEN.

Pray excuse me for to-day, as it is just four o'clock. [The close of this
letter has not been deciphered by its possessor, who has traced over the
hieroglyphics with a pencil; it reads somewhat to this effect, "to go to
Carl at four o'clock. We were much amused," &c.]

[Footnote 1: This letter is evidently written about the same time that the
copying of the A minor Quartet (Op. 132) took place, of which the letter
treats, and is probably "the enclosure" name