to the inevitable.  Love demands all, and has a right to do so, and thus it is I feel towards you and you towards me; but you do not sufficiently remember that I must live both for you and for myself.  Were we wholly united, you would feel this sorrow as little as I should.  My journey was terrible.  I did not arrive here till four o’clock yesterday morning, as no horses were to be had.  The drivers chose another route; but what a dreadful one it was!  At the last stage I was warned not to travel through the night, and to beware of a certain wood, but this only incited me to go forward, and I was wrong.  The carriage broke down, owing to the execrable roads, mere deep rough country lanes, and had it not been for the postilions I must have been left by the wayside.  Esterhazy, travelling the usual road, had the same fate with eight horses, whereas I had only four.  Still I felt a certain degree of pleasure, which I invariably do when I have happily surmounted any difficulty.  But I must now pass from the outer to the inner man.  We shall, I trust, soon meet again; to-day I cannot impart to you all the reflections I have made, during the last few days, on my life; were our hearts closely united forever, none of these would occur to me.  My heart is overflowing with all I have to say to you.  Ah! there are moments when I find that speech is actually nothing.  Take courage!  Continue to be ever my true and only love, my all! as I am yours.  The gods must ordain what is further to be and shall be!

Your faithful

LUDWIG.

Monday Evening, July 6.

You grieve! dearest of all beings!  I have just heard that the letters must be sent off very early.  Mondays and Thursdays are the only days when the post goes to K. from here.  You grieve!  Ah! where I am, there you are ever with me; how earnestly shall I strive to pass my life with you, and what a life will it be!!!  Whereas now!! without you!! and persecuted by the kindness of others, which I neither deserve nor try to deserve!  The servility of man towards his fellow-man pains me, and when I regard myself as a component part of the universe, what am I, what is he who is called the greatest?—­and yet herein are displayed the godlike feelings of humanity!—­I weep in thinking that you will receive no intelligence from me till probably Saturday.  However dearly you may love me, I love you more fondly still.  Never conceal your feelings from me.  Good-night!  As a patient at these baths, I must now go to rest [a few words are here effaced by Beethoven himself].  Oh, heavens! so near, and yet so far!  Is not our love a truly celestial mansion, but firm as the vault of heaven itself?

July 7.

GOOD-MORNING!