The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
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The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
Most Extraordinary one we beg that your servant find some one to
clean out the rooms, as he knows the quarters he can at once fix
the price--but soon.
Carnival Ragamuffin!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 8: Most Extraordinary, foremost Oscillator of the world
and that without lever!!!!
We are indebted to you for the greatest thanks for having endowed
us with a portion of your oscillatory power, we wish to thank you
for the same in person, and therefore invite you to come to the
Swan to-morrow, an inn whose name bears evidence that it was made
for the occasion when the talk is about such things.
(February 19.) Dear Z: Only yesterday did I receive written notice
that the Archduke will pay his share in notes of redemption--I
beg you now to note down for me approximately what you said on
Saturday so that I may send it to the other 2. They want to give
me a certificate that the Archduke pays in N. R., but I think this
is unnecessary, the more since these courtiers in spite of their
apparent friendship for me say that my demands are not ~just~!!!!!
O heaven help me to bear this; I am no Hercules who can help Atlas
bear up the world or do it in his stead. It was only yesterday that
I heard in detail how beautifully Herr Baron Kraft had spoken about
me at Zizius’s, had judged me--never mind dear Z. it will not be
for much longer that I shall continue the shameful manner in which
I am living here. Art, the persecuted one, finds everywhere an
asylum, did not Dædalus, shut up in the labyrinth invent the wings
which carried him ~upwards~ into the air, and I, too, will find
them, these wings.
The correspondence with the Archduke, of course including the notes to
his “spiritual adviser,” Baumeister, and his “chamberlain,” Schweiger,
in the very profuseness of its expressions of devotion, awakens some
mistrust of its writer’s sincerity. There is too much of profession.
True zeal in and a hearty performance of one’s duty need few verbal
attestations.
(To Baumeister)
March 12, 1812.
P. P.
Please send me the overture to the epilogue Ungarn’s Wohlthäter, it
must be hurriedly copied in order to be sent to Gratz for use there
in a concert for the poor. I count myself altogether too happy
when my art is enlisted for such charitable purposes. You need,
therefore, only tell H. I. High, our gracious lord, about it and he
will certainly be glad to have it delivered to you, the more gladly
since you know that all the property of my small intellectual
faculties is the sole property of H. I. Highness--as soon as the
overture is copied I will immediately return it to H. Imp. Highness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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