Dear, Dear Bettine!
I have already had two letters from you; and I see from your letter to Toni [Anderson footnote: “Elizabeth (Bettina) Brentano (1785-1859) … formed in her youth a friendship with Goethe…”] that you still remember me and, what is more, far too favourably – I carried your first letter about with me during the whole summer; and indeed it often made me feel supremely happy. Even though I do not write to you very often and although you see nothing of me, yet him thought I write 1000 letters to you a thousand times –– Even if I had not read your remarks about it in your letters, I could imagine how you were getting on in Berlin with those dregs of international society; nothing but talk and chatter about art, without doing anything ! ! ! ! ! You will find the best description of this in Schiller’s poem ‘Die Flüsse’, where the River Spree is speaking – You are getting married, dear Bettine, or perhaps you are already married; and I have not even been able to see you again before the event. Well, may all the happiness and blessings which marriage bestows upon a wedded couple be yours and your husband’s in full measure – What shall I tell you about myself? ‘Pity my fate’ I cry with Johanna. If I am spared for a few more years, I shall render thanks for this, as for all other weal and woe, to the All-embracing Divinity, to the Highest – If you write to Goethe about me, choose all the words which will tell him of my warmest regard and admiration. I am just about to write to him myself on the subject of Egmont [Opus 82] which I have set to music, and, what is more, purely out of love for his poems which make me feel happy. But who can sufficiently thank a great poet, a nation’s most precious jewel? -0-0 Well, no more of this, dear, kind B[ettine]. I did not get home until four o’clock this morning from a bacchanalia, where I really had to laugh a great deal, with the result that today I have had to cry as heartily. Exuberant jollity often drives me back most violently into myself – As for Clemens, many thanks for his friendly interest. With regard to the cantata, the subject of it is not important enough for us in Vienna; Berlin is different in this respect. As for my affection, the sister has such a large share of it that not much will be left for her brother; and will that be of any use to him? -- Now all good wishes, dear, dear B[ettine]. I kiss you sorrowfully on your forehead and thus imprint on it as with a seal all my thoughts of you –
Write soon, soon, and very often to your friend
Beethoven