"In Vienna I hope for a letter from you; write soon, soon and fully; in eight days I shall be there. The court goes to-morrow; to-day they are to play once more. Goethe has taught the Empress her _rôle_. His duke and he wished me to play some of my own music, but I refused them both, for they are both in love with Chinese porcelain. A little indulgence is necessary, for understanding seems to have lost the upper hand; but I will not play for such perverse tastes, neither do I choose to be a party to the follies of princes who are for ever committing some such absurdity. Adieu, adieu, dear love; your last letter lay for a whole night next to my heart, and cheered me there. Musicians allow themselves everything. Heavens! how I love you! "Your most faithful friend and deaf brother, "BEETHOVEN." These letters were first published in Bettina's book, "Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia," but the style is so unlike Beethoven's simple mode of expression, that it is difficult to discover what the composer really wrote to Bettina, and what has been supplied by the latter's rather too vivid imagination. The reiterated _dear_, _dearest_, and the _write soon_, _soon_, _often_, are very feminine and very _un-Beethovenish_. This strange, inexplicable little being, who fascinated not only Beethoven, but every one else with whom she came in contact, has also published an account of her interviews with Beethoven. This is so highly coloured that we may be excused for doubting the perfect truth of the recital, especially as we know what a gloss--nay, what falseness--she contrived to give to all that related to her intercourse with Goethe. She herself tells us, naïvely enough, that when she showed Beethoven one morning her account of what he had said the previous day, he was quite surprised, and exclaimed, "Did I really say that? I must have had a _raptus_!" Bettina was, however, of some service to him, as it was doubtless she who paved the way to his acquaintance with Goethe, and their meeting in 1812 at Toeplitz; and her family remained true, warm friends of the composer long after the great minister had forgotten his very existence. Beethoven was most unfortunate in his attachments, the objects of which were always of much higher social standing than himself. Constantly associating with people of rank and culture, it was natural that to the sensitive nature of our poet, the young girl nobly born, with all the intuitive, nameless fascinations of the high-bred aristocrat, should present a great contrast to the plebeian, every-day graces of the _bourgeoise_. Beethoven used to say that he had found more real appreciation of his works amongst the nobility than in any other circle, and we can hardly wonder at the infatuation with which he stakes all his chances of happiness on a love which he knows can never be gratified.