You have done a really good deed in securing justice for the _manes_ of Mozart by your truly exemplary and exhaustive essay, and lay and _profane_, all who are musical or can in anywise be accounted so must give you thanks. It requires either nothing or much for one like Herr W. to bring such a subject on the carpet. When it is also considered that to the best of my knowledge such an one has written a treatise on composition and yet tries to attribute such passages as [Illustration] to Mozart, and adds to it such passages as [Illustration: Agnus Dei peccata mundi] and [Illustration: qui tollis peccata qui tollis peccata] we are reminded by Herr W’s amazing knowledge of harmony and melody of the old and dead Imperial Composers Sterkel, ...... (illegible), Kalkbrenner (the father), Andre (_nicht der gar Andere_) etc. _Requiescat in pace._--I thank you in especial, my honored friend, for the happiness which you have given me in sending me your essay. I have always counted myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart and will remain such till my last breath. Reverend Sir, _your blessing soon_.[151] The concluding supplication recalls an anecdote related by Castelli in his memoirs: Beethoven and Abbé Stadler once met at Steiner’s. About to depart, Beethoven kneeled before the Abbé and said: “Reverend Sir, give me your blessing.” Stadler, not at all embarrassed, made the sign of the cross over the kneeling man and, as if mumbling a prayer, said: “Hilft’s nix, schadt’s nix” (“If it does no good, ’twill do no harm”). Beethoven thereupon kissed his hand amid the laughter of the bystanders. Jahn heard the same story from Fischoff.[152] A remark in a Conversation Book of 1826 indicates that Stadler had urged Beethoven to write a mass. Holz says: “If Stadler tells you to write a mass it is certain that something will be done for it. He knows best of anybody which way the wind blows.--He has Dietrichstein and Eybler in his pocket.--You are well cared for if Stadler favors it.” The conversations of Holz also provide a fleeting glimpse of Schubert in this year. Holz tells Beethoven that he had seen the young composer with either Artaria or Mosel (the allusion is vague) and that the two were reading a Handel score together. “He (Schubert) was very amiable and thanked me for the pleasure which Mylord’s [Schuppanzigh’s] Quartets gave him; he was always present.--He has a great gift for songs.--Do you know the ‘Erlking’? He spoke very mystically, always.” [Sidenote: BEETHOVEN AND FRIEDRICH WIECK]