t written to Goethe
about me? I would gladly bury my head in a sack, so that I might neither
see nor hear what goes on in the world, because I shall meet you there no
more; but I shall get a letter from you? Hope sustains me, as it does half
the world; through life she has been my close companion, or what would have
become of me? I send you "Kennst Du das Land," written with my own hand, as
a remembrance of the hour when I first knew you; I send you also another
that I composed since I bade you farewell, my dearest, fairest sweetheart!

Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,
Was bedraenget dich so sehr;
Welch ein neues fremdes Leben,
Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.

Now answer me, my dearest friend, and say what is to become of me since my
heart has turned such a rebel. Write to your most faithful friend,

BEETHOVEN.

[Footnote 1: The celebrated letters to Bettina are given here exactly as
published in her book, _Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia_ (Berlin, Arnim,
1857) in two volumes. I never myself had any doubts of their being genuine
(with the exception of perhaps some words in the middle of the third
letter), nor can any one now distrust them, especially after the
publication of _Beethoven's Letters_. But for the sake of those for whom
the weight of innate conviction is not sufficient proof, I may here mention
that in December, 1864, Professor Moritz Carriere, in Munich, when
conversing with me about _Beethoven's Letters_, expressly assured me that
these three letters were genuine, and that he had seen them in Berlin at
Bettina v. Arnim's in 1839, and read them most attentively and with the
deepest interest. From their important contents, he urged their immediate
publication; and when this shortly after ensued, no change whatever struck
him as having been made in the original text; on the contrary, he still
perfectly remembered that the much-disputed phraseology (and especially the
incident with Goethe) was precisely the same as in the originals. This
testimony seems to me the more weighty, as M. Carriere must not in such
matters be looked on as a novice, but as a competent judge, who has
carefully studied all that concerns our literary heroes, and who would not
permit anything to be falsely imputed to Beethoven any more than to Goethe.
Beethoven's biography is, however, the proper place to discuss more closely
such things, especially his character and his conduct in this particular
case. At present we only r