Pray, let me have an immediate answer, as I am now on the verge of deciding on the publication of various works.  If you consider it worth while, be so good as to send me a duplicate of the list with which you furnished Herr Steiner.  In the expectation of a speedy reply, I remain, with esteem,

Your obedient

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

307.

TO HERREN PETERS & CO.

Vienna, July 26, 1822.

I write merely to say that I agree to give you the Mass and pianoforte arrangement of it for 1000 florins C.M.  You shall receive the above, written out in score, by the end of July, perhaps a few days sooner or later.  As I am always very much occupied, and have been indisposed for the last five months, and works to be sent to a distance requiring the most careful supervision, I must proceed rather more slowly than usual.  At all events, Steiner shall get nothing further from me, as he has just played me a most Jewish trick; so he is not one of those who might have had the Mass.  The competition for my works is at present very great, for which I thank the Almighty, as I have hitherto been such a loser.  I am the foster-father of my brother’s destitute child, a boy who shows so much aptitude for scientific pursuits that not only does his study of these, and his maintenance, cost a great deal of money, but I must also strive to make some future provision for him; being neither Indians nor Iroquois, who, as we know, leave everything to Providence, whereas we consider a pauper’s existence to be a very sad one.

I assure you on my honor, which, next to God, is what I prize most, that I authorized no one to accept commissions for me.  My fixed principle has always been never to make any offer to publishers; not from pride, but simply from a wish to ascertain how far the empire of my small talents extended.

I must conclude for to-day, and wishing you every success, I am, with esteem,

Your obedient

BEETHOVEN.

308.[1]

TO HERR PETERS.

Vienna, August 3, 1822.

I already wrote to you that my health was still far from being quite restored.  I am obliged to have recourse to baths and mineral waters as well as to medicine; all this makes me rather unpunctual, especially as I must go on writing; corrections, too, run away with a great deal of time.

As to the songs and marches and other trifles, my choice is still undecided, but by the 15th of this month everything shall be ready to be sent off.  I await your orders on the subject, and in the mean time shall make no use of your bill of exchange.  As soon as I know that the money for the Mass and the other works has arrived here, all shall be ready for delivery by the 15th; and after that date I must set off to some mineral waters near this, when it will be most desirable for me to avoid all business for a time.  More as to other matters when less occupied.  Pray, do not suspect me of any ignoble motives.  It pains me when I am obliged to bargain.