thorough-bass; my feelings were so sensitive from childhood that
I practiced counterpoint without knowing that it must be so or could be
otherwise."

(Note on a sheet containing directions for the use of fourths in
suspensions--probably intended for the instruction of Archduke Rudolph.)

48. "Continue, Your Royal Highness, to write down briefly your
occasional ideas while at the pianoforte. For this a little table
alongside the pianoforte is necessary. By this means not only is the
fancy strengthened, but one learns to hold fast in a moment the
most remote conceptions. It is also necessary to compose without the
pianoforte; say often a simple chord melody, with simple harmonies, then
figurate according to the rules of counterpoint, and beyond them; this
will give Y. R. H. no headache, but, on the contrary, feeling yourself
thus in the midst of art, a great pleasure."

(July 1, 1823, to his pupil Archduke Rudolph.)

49. "The bad habit, which has clung to me from childhood, of always
writing down a musical thought which occurs to me, good or bad, has
often been harmful to me."

(July 23, 1815, to Archduke Rudolph, while excusing himself for not
having visited H.R.H., on the ground that he had been occupied in noting
a musical idea which had occurred to him.)

50. "As is my habit, the pianoforte part of the concerto (op. 19) was
not written out in the score; I have just written it, wherefore,
in order to expedite matters, you receive it in my not too legible
handwriting."

(April 22, 1801, to the publisher Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)

51. "Correspondence, as you know, was never my forte; some of my best
friends have not had a letter from me in years. I live only in my notes
(compositions), and one is scarcely finished when another is begun. As I
am working now I often compose three, even four, pieces simultaneously."

(Vienna, June 29, 1800, to Wegeler, in Bonn.)

52. "I never write a work continuously, without interruption. I
am always working on several at the same time, taking up one, then
another."

(June 1, 1816, to Medical Inspector Dr. Karl von Bursy, when the latter
asked about an opera (the book by Berge, sent to Beethoven by Amenda),
which was never written.)

53. "I must accustom myself to think out at once the whole, as soon as
it shows itself, with all the voices, in my head."

(Note in a sketch-book of 1810, containing studies for the