I received your letter of the 10th at the hands of the miserable scoundrel Schindler. You need only to give your letters directly to the post, I am certain to receive them, for I avoid this mean and contemptible fellow as much as possible. Karl can not come to me before the 29th of this month when he will write you. You can not well be wholly unadvised as to what the two _canailles_, Lump and Bastard,[96] are doing to you, and you have had letters on the subject from me and Karl, for, little as you deserve it I shall never forget that you are my brother, and a good angel will yet come to rid you of these two _canailles_. This former and present strumpet who received visits from her fellow no less than three times while you were ill, and who in addition to everything else has your money wholly in her hands. O infamous disgrace! Isn’t there a spark of manhood in you?!!!... About coming to you I will write another time. Ought I so to _degrade_ myself as to associate with such bad company? Mayhap this can be avoided and we yet pass a few days with you. About the rest of your letter another time. Farewell. Unseen I hover over you and work through others so that these _canailles_ shall not strangle you. As always your faithful Brother. There were several visitors to Beethoven at Baden in the summer of 1823 who have left accounts of their experiences. One was an Englishman, Edward Schulz, who published his story in the “Harmonicon” in January 1824. This extremely lively letter was reprinted by Moscheles in his translation (or rather, adaptation) of Schindler’s biography of Beethoven and incorporated in the second German edition, where Schindler accompanies it with several illuminative glosses which are less necessary now than they were when the biographer wrote. Schulz visited Beethoven on September 28 in the company of Haslinger. He describes it as a _dies faustus_ for him and, as Schindler shrewdly observes, it must also have been one for Beethoven, since he managed to hear the conversation of his visitors without the aid of an ear-trumpet. He talked with great animation, as was his wont when in good humor, but, says the English visitor, “one unlucky question, one ill-judged piece of advice--for instance, concerning the cure of his deafness--is quite sufficient to estrange him from you forever.” He asked Haslinger about the highest possible note on the trombone, but was dissatisfied with the answer which he received; introduced his nephew and showed his pride in the youth’s attainments by telling his guest that he might put to him “a riddle in Greek” if he liked. At dinner during a visit to the Helenenthal he commented on the profusion of provisions at dinner, saying: “Why such a variety of dishes? Man is but little above other animals if his chief pleasure is confined to a dinner-table.” A few excerpts from the letter will serve to advance the present narrative: