Dear, Kind Gleichenstein!
I find it impossible to resist my impulse to tell you of my fears about Breuning’s hysterical and feverish condition [Anderson footnote: “Stephen von Breuning had married in April, 1808, Julie, daughter of Dr. von Vering, who had treated Beethoven for his ear trouble. She died suddenly on March 21, 1809.”] and at the same time to beg you so far as possible to attach yourself to him more closely or, rather, to contrive to draw him more closely to yourself. My circumstances allow me far too little time to discharge the supreme duties of friendship. So I beg you, I adjure you in the name of the good and noble feelings you certainly possess, to shoulder the burden of this anxiety which is really torturing me. It would be a very good thing if you could persuade him to accompany you here and there and (however much he may try to spur ) to you on to work harder) to restrain him a little from his excessive and, as I think, not always absolutely necessary exertions – You would hardly believe in what an excited condition I once found him – You will have heard of his outburst of annoyance yesterday – noting but the result of his dreadful irritability which, unless he checks and controls it, will certainly ruin him –
Hence, my dear Gleichenstein, I am entrusting to your care one of my best and staunchest friends, the more so as your business affairs have already established a kind of connexion between you and him, a connexion which you will strengthen still further by frequently making him realize your anxiety for his welfare; and this you can do the more easily because he is really attached to you – But your noble heart, which I know so well, certainly needs no injunctions – Act, therefore, in my interest and in that of your good friend Breuning.
I embrace you with all my heart.
Beethoven