[81] Goethe’s answer to this letter is printed in the Weimar Collection of the poet’s correspondence. Vol. XXII, No. 615. It is worth producing here: Carlsbad, June 25, 1811. Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents. Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the happiest of her life. I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont when I return home and am thankful in advance--for I have heard it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us. [82] This second letter does not seem to have been preserved. [83] At this point in the biography, Thayer, believing that the broken marriage engagement which had had so powerful an effect on Beethoven’s spirits and intellectual energies in 1810 had been one entered into with Countess Therese Brunswick, introduces the letters to Gleichenstein and makes the following comments, which the English Editor prefers to introduce in a foot-note rather than to put them in the body of the text, as is done in the second German edition, and give them a false interpretation: “The allusion to Gleichenstein’s marriage with the younger of the sisters Malfatti, which took place near the end of May, sufficiently indicates the date of these notes; and the statement made in a former chapter--that Beethoven once offered his hand in marriage to the elder, Therese--accounts satisfactorily for the strong excitement under which they were written; for, that this offer was not made ~before~ this time (1811) has been--nor ~after~, soon will be--made clear.