You will receive this letter from Baden, where I am taking the baths, as my illness which has lasted a year and a half is not yet ended. Much as I should like to write to you about many things I must yet be brief and only reply to your last of August 22nd. As regards the Mass you know that at an earlier date I wrote you that a larger honorarium had been offered me. I would not be so sordid as to haggle with you for a hundred or few more florins; but my poor health and many other unpleasant circumstances compel me to insist upon it. The minimum that at least four publishers have offered me for the mass is 1000 florins Convention Coin at the rate of twenty, or counting the florin at 3 Austrian florins C. C. Much as I shall regret if we must part just because of this work, I know that your generosity (_Biederherzigkeit_) will not allow me to lose money on this work, which is perhaps the greatest that I have composed. You know that I am not boastful and that I do not like to show the letters of others or even quote from them; if it were not so I might submit proofs from far and near. But I very much wish to have the matter about the Mass settled as soon as possible, for I have had to endure plots of all sorts on account of it. It would be agreeable if you would let me know as soon as possible if you will pay me this honorarium. If you will, you need only deposit the difference with Brentano, whereupon I will at once send you a well corrected score of the Mass which will suffice you for the engraving. I hope my dear Simrock, whom I consider the richest of all these publishers, will not permit his old friend to go elsewhere for the sake of a few hundred florins. Concerning all other matters I will write you soon; I shall remain here till the beginning of October. I shall receive all letters which you may write, safely as I did your last, only I beg you to write soon. Farewell, greet the family cordially for me; as soon as I can I will write to them myself. Cordially your old friend, Beethoven.