"My most dear, kind Friend,—Kings and princes may indeed be able to create professors and privy councillors, and to bestow titles and decorations, but great men they cannot make. Spirits that tower above the common herd, these they cannot pretend to make, and therefore they are forced to respect them. When two men like Goethe and myself come together, these grandees must perceive what is accounted great by such as we.
"On our way home yesterday we met the whole imperial family; we saw them coming in the distance, when Goethe immediately dropped my arm to place himself on one side; and say what I would, I could not get him to advance another step. I pressed my hat down upon my head, buttoned up my great-coat, and made my way with folded arms through the thickest of the throng. Princes and courtiers formed a line, Duke Rudolph took off his hat, the Empress made the first salutation. The great ones of the earth know me! To my infinite amusement, I saw the procession file past Goethe, who stood by the side, hat in hand, bending low. I took him to task for it pretty smartly, gave him no quarter, and reproached him with all his sins, especially those against you, dearest friend, for we had just been speaking about you. Heavens! had I been granted a time with you such as he had, I should have produced many more great works! A musician is also a poet, and can feel himself transported by a pair of eyes into a more beautiful world, where nobler spirits sport with him, and impose great tasks upon him. What ideas rushed into my mind when I first saw you in the little observatory during that glorious May shower, which proved so fertilizing to me also! The loveliest themes stole from your glances into my heart,—themes which shall enchant the world when Beethoven can no longer direct. If God grant me a few years more, I must see you again, my dearest friend; the voice which ever upholds the right within me demands it. Spirits can also love one another; I shall ever woo yours; your applause is dearer to me than aught else in the world. I told Goethe my opinion of the effect of applause upon men like us—we must be heard with intelligence by our peers; emotion is very well for women (pardon me), but music ought to strike fire from the souls of men. Ah! dearest child, how long is it since we were both so perfectly agreed upon all points! There is no real good but the possession of a pure, good soul, which we perceive in everything, and before which we have no need to dissemble. We must be something if we would appear something. The world must recognise us, it is not always unjust; but this is a light matter to me, for I have a loftier aim.
"In Vienna I hope for a letter from you; write soon, soon and fully; in eight days I shall be there. The court goes to-morrow; to-day they are to play once more. Goethe has taught the Empress her rôle. His duke and he wished me to play some of my own music, but I refused them both, for they are both in love with Chinese porcelain. A little indulgence is necessary, for understanding seems to have lost the upper hand; but I will not play for such perverse tastes, neither do I choose to be a party to the follies of princes who are for ever committing some such absurdity. Adieu, adieu, dear love; your last letter lay for a whole night next to my heart, and cheered me there. Musicians allow themselves everything. Heavens! how I love you!
"Your most faithful friend and deaf brother,
"Beethoven."
These letters were first published in Bettina's book, "Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia," but the style is so unlike Beethoven's simple mode of expression, that it is difficult to discover what the composer really wrote to Bettina, and what has been supplied by the latter's rather too vivid imagination. The reiterated dear, dearest, and the write soon, soon, often, are very feminine and very un-Beethovenish. This strange, inexplicable little being, who fascinated not only Beethoven, but every one else with whom she came in contact, has also published an account of her interviews with Beethoven. This is so highly coloured that we may be excused for doubting the perfect truth of the recital, especially as we know what a gloss—nay, what falseness—she contrived to give to all that related to her intercourse with Goethe. She herself tells us, naïvely enough, that when she showed Beethoven one morning her account of what he had said the previous day, he was quite surprised, and exclaimed, "Did I really say that? I must have had a raptus!"
Bettina was, however, of some service to him, as it was doubtless she who paved the way to his acquaintance with Goethe, and their meeting in 1812 at Toeplitz; and her family remained true, warm friends of the composer long after the great minister had forgotten his very existence.
Beethoven was most unfortunate in his attachments, the objects of which were always of much higher social standing than himself. Constantly associating with people of rank and culture, it was natural that to the sensitive nature of our poet, the young girl nobly born, with all the intuitive, nameless fascinations of the high-bred aristocrat, should present a great contrast to the plebeian, every-day graces of the bourgeoise. Beethoven used to say that he had found more real appreciation of his works amongst the nobility than in any other circle, and we can hardly wonder at the infatuation with which he stakes all his chances of happiness on a love which he knows can never be gratified.
The following little scrap in his handwriting has been preserved:—"Only love—yes, only that—has power to give me a happier life. Oh, God! let me at length find her—her who destined to be mine, who shall strengthen me in virtue!" Schindler imagines that these words have reference to a well-known dilettante of great talent, Fräulein Marie Pachler, whom Beethoven admired exceedingly. He never summoned up courage enough to propose to her however, and she afterwards married an advocate in Gratz. This lady may also be the subject of the allusion in a letter to Ries, 1816:—"Say all that is kind from me to your wife; I, alas! have none. I found only one with whom I could have been happy, and she will probably never be mine. But I am not on this account a woman-hater!"
Another love of Beethoven's was the Countess Marie Erdödy, to whom he dedicated the two splendid Trios, Op. 70, but this seems to have been entirely a Platonic affection.
Who can exaggerate the immense benefit that a loving, tender wife would have been to Beethoven—a wife like Mozart's Constance? The consciousness of one ever by his side to whom he might safely confide all that wounded or annoyed him, would have more than neutralized the chilling, exasperating effects of the calamity that had overtaken him, would have been a fresh impetus to great achievements. But fate had willed it otherwise.