Just a few words to-day--and indeed in pencil (with thine). Only till to-morrow is my room definitely engaged. What an unworthy waste of time in such matters! Why this deep sorrow where necessity speaks? Can our love endure otherwise than through sacrifices, through restraint in longing? Canst thou help not being wholly mine? Can I, not being wholly thine? Oh! gaze at nature in all its beauty, and calmly accept the inevitable--love demands everything, and rightly so. Thus is it for me with thee, for thee with me, only thou so easily forgettest that I must live for myself and for thee. Were we wholly united, thou wouldst feel this painful fact as little as I should. My journey was terrible. I arrived here only yesterday morning at four o'clock, and as they were short of horses, the mail-coach selected another route; but what an awful road! At the last stage but one, I was advised not to travel by night; they warned me against the wood, but that only spurred me on, and I was wrong; the coach must needs break down, the road being dreadful, a swamp, a mere country road; without the postillions I had with me I should have stuck on the way. Esterhazi, by the ordinary road, met the same fate with eight horses as I with four--yet it gave me some pleasure, as successfully overcoming any difficulty always does. Now for a quick change from without to within; we shall probably soon see each other; besides, to-day I cannot tell thee what has been passing through my mind during the past few days concerning my life. Were our hearts closely united I should not do things of this kind. My heart is full of the many things I have to say to thee. Ah! there are moments in which I feel that speech is powerless. Cheer up. Remain my true, my only treasure, my all!!! As I to thee. The gods must send the rest; what is in store for us must be and ought to be. Thy faithful LUDWIG." It is difficult to divine what was the barrier which separated these two from the consummation of their love. Was it the lack of fortune or the difference in social position? Perhaps Beethoven rebelled against the long period of probation which was imposed on him or resented the humiliation of keeping his love secret for an indefinite period. Perhaps, impulsive and afflicted as he was, a misanthrope too, he caused his loved one to suffer without wishing it and gave himself up to despair in consequence. The fact remains that the engagement was broken off, although neither seems ever to have proved faithless.