I send you 40 florins for the singing-master [corepetiteur].  Get a written receipt from him:  how many mistakes are thus avoided! and this should be done by every one who pays money for another.  Did not Holz bring Rampel’s receipt [the copyist] unasked, and do not others act in the same way?  Take the white waistcoat for yourself, and have the other made for me.  You can bring the metronome with you; nothing can be done with it.  Bring also your linen sheets and two coverlets, and some lead-pencils and patterns; be sure you get the former at the Brandstatt.  And now farewell, my dear son; come to my arms as early as you can,—­perhaps to-morrow. [The paper is here torn away.]

As ever, your faithful

FATHER.

P.S.  All that could be done was to send you by the old woman’s char a banc, which, however, including everything, costs 8 florins 36 kreutzers.

Do not forget anything, and be careful of your health.

390.

TO HERR NAeGELI.

Vienna, September 16, 1824.

MY ESTEEMED FRIEND,—­

I gladly comply with your wish that I should arrange the vocal parts of my last Grand Mass for the organ, or piano, for the use of the different choral societies.  This I am willing to do, chiefly because these choral associations, by their private and still more by their church festivals, make an unusually profound impression on the multitude, and my chief object in the composition of this Grand Mass was to awaken, and deeply to impress, religious feelings both on singers and hearers.  As, however, a copy of this kind and its repeated revision must cause a considerable outlay, I cannot, I fear, ask less than 50 ducats for it, and leave it to you to make inquiries on the subject, so that I may devote my time exclusively to it.

I am, with high consideration,

Your obedient

BEETHOVEN.

391.

TO SCHOTT,—­MAYENCE.

Baden, near Vienna, September 17, 1824.

The Quartet [Op. 127, in E flat major] you shall also certainly receive by the middle of October.  Overburdened by work, and suffering from bad health, I really have some claim on the indulgence of others.  I am here entirely owing to my health, or rather to the want of it, although I already feel better.  Apollo and the Muses do not yet intend me to become the prey of the bony Scytheman, as I have yet much to do for you, and much to bequeath which my spirit dictates, and calls on me to complete, before I depart hence for the Elysian fields; for I feel as if I had written scarcely more than a few notes of music.

I wish your efforts all possible success in the service of art; it is that and science alone which point the way, and lead us to hope for a higher life.  I will write again soon.  In haste, your obedient

BEETHOVEN.

392.

TO HAUSCHKA.

Baden, September 23, 1824.

MY DEAR AND VALUED FRIEND,—­