h you they are suffering; thoroughly
depressed, I hastened away. Write to me a few lines.

Your true friend BEETHOVEN embraces you all.

NO. 198

TO BREITKOPF AND HAERTEL

Vienna, August 8, 1809.

I have handed over to Kind and Co. a _sextet_ for 2 clarinets, 2
bassoons, 2 horns, and 2 German lieder or songs, so that they may reach
you as soon as possible--they are presents to you in return for all
those things which I asked you for _as presents_; the _Musik Zeitung_
which I had also forgotten--I remind you in a friendly way about it.
Perhaps you could let me have editions of Goethe's and Schiller's
complete works--from their literary abundance something _comes in to
you_, and I then send to you many things, i.e., _something which goes
out into all the world_. Those two poets are my favorite poets, also
Ossian, Homer, the latter whom I can, unfortunately, read only in
translation. So these (Goethe and Schiller) you have only to shoot out
from your literary store-house, and if you send them to me soon you
will make me perfectly happy, and all the more so, seeing that I hope to
pass the remainder of the summer in some cozy country corner. The sextet
is one of my early things, and, moreover, was written in one night; the
best one can say of it is that it was composed by an author who, at any
rate, has produced better works--and yet, for many, such works are the
best.

Farewell, and send very soon news to your most devoted

BEETHOVEN.

Of the 'cello Sonata I should like to have a few copies; I would indeed
beg you always to send me half a dozen copies; I never sell any--there
are, however, here and there poor _Musici_, to whom one cannot refuse a
thing of that sort.

NO. 220

TO BETTINA BRENTANO

Vienna, August 11, 1810.

Dearest Bettina (Friend!):

No finer Spring than the present one--I say that and also feel it,
because I have made your acquaintance. You yourself have probably seen
that in society I am like a frog (fish) on the sand, which turns round
and round, and cannot get away until a well-wishing Galatea puts him
again into the mighty sea. Yes, I was quite out of my element, dearest
Bettina; I was surprised by you at a moment when ill-humor was quite
master of me, but it actually disappeared at sight of you. I at once
perceived that you belonged to a different world from this absurd one,
to which, with the best will, one cannot open one's ears. I myself am a
wretched man and yet compl