at I mean to leave Baden in
the course of a few days, and that he is to engage the lodging in Doebling
as soon as you have given him this message. I had nearly left this to-day;
I detest being here--I am sick of it. For Heaven's sake urge him to close
the bargain at once, for I want to take possession immediately. Neither
show nor speak to any one of what is written in the previous page of this
letter. I wish to prove to him in every respect that I am not so meanly
disposed as he is. Indeed I have written to him, although my resolve as to
the dissolution of our friendship remains firm and unchangeable.
Your friend,
BEETHOVEN.
38.
TO HERR RIES.
Berlin, July 24, 1804.
... You were no doubt not a little surprised about the affair with
Breuning; believe me, my dear friend, that the ebullition on my part was
only an outbreak caused by many previous scenes of a disagreeable nature. I
have the gift of being able to conceal and to repress my susceptibility on
many occasions; but if attacked at a time when I chance to be peculiarly
irritable, I burst forth more violently than any one. Breuning certainly
possesses many admirable qualities, but he thinks himself quite faultless;
whereas the very defects that he discovers in others are those which he
possesses himself to the highest degree. From my childhood I have always
despised his petty mind. My powers of discrimination enabled me to foresee
the result with Breuning, for our modes of thinking, acting, and feeling
are entirely opposite; and yet I believed that these difficulties might be
overcome, but experience has disproved this. So now I want no more of his
friendship! I have only found two friends in the world with whom I never
had a misunderstanding; but what men these were! One is dead, the other
still lives. Although for nearly six years past we have seen nothing of
each other, yet I know that I still hold the first place in his heart, as
he does in mine [see No. 12]. The true basis of friendship is to be found
in sympathy of heart and soul. I only wish you could have read the letter I
wrote to Breuning, and his to me. No! never can he be restored to his
former place in my heart. The man who could attribute to his friend so base
a mode of thinking, and could himself have recourse to so base a mode of
acting towards him, is no longer worthy of my friendship.
Do not forget the affair of my apartments. Farewell! Do not be too much
addicted to tailoring,[1] r
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