These professions may well excite a smile; for “it is surely true” when ~we~ say, that his duties to the Archduke had already become extremely irksome; and that the necessity of sacrificing in some small degree to them his previous independence grew daily more annoying and vexatious; so much so that, in fact, he availed himself of any and every excuse to avoid them. The Archduke made a point of adding a complete collection of Beethoven’s music to his library; and the master lent his aid in this both by presenting all his new productions in manuscript and in giving titles of older printed works--gaining thereby a secure depository for his compositions, where they were ever at his service. Thus (May 18) he sends for the Sonata “Das Lebewohl, etc.,” “as I haven’t it myself and must send the corrections”; some time after for the Scottish songs, “as two numbers, one in my handwriting, have been lost and they must be copied again so that they may be sent away.”[83] Here is the place for a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel: Vienna, May 6th. Errors--errors--you yourselves are one large error--here I must send my copyist, there I must go myself if I wish that my works shall not appear--as a mere error--it appears as if the musical tribunal at L. was unable to produce a single decent proof-reader, besides which you send out the works before you receive the corrections--at least in the case of larger works with various parts you might count the measures--but the Fantasia shows how this is done--look in the overture to Egmont, where a whole measure is missing. --Here the list of errors ( ).... Make as many errors as you please, permit as many errors as you please--you are still highly esteemed by me, it is the custom of men that we esteem them because they have not made still greater errors. About this time Gottfried Chr. Härtel’s wife died, and on May 20th Beethoven wrote to him a letter of condolence in which he said: “It appears to me that in view of such a separation which confronts nearly every husband one ought to be dissuaded from entering this state.” To a suggestion made by his publishers he replies: “What you say about an opera would surely be desirable, the directors, too, would pay ~well~ for one, the conditions are just now unfavorable, it is true, but if you will write me what the poet demands I will make inquiry concerning the matter; I have written to Paris for books, successful melodramas, comedies, etc. (for I do not dare to write an original opera with any of our local poets), which I shall then have adapted--O, poverty of intellect--and pocket!” [Sidenote: MUSIC FOR “THE RUINS OF ATHENS”]