wishes for your welfare, and my entreaty that you will
sometimes think of me.

[K.]

[Footnote 1: Beethoven speaks very briefly of his meeting with Goethe.
Goethe in his _Tag- und Jahrschriften_ of 1812 makes no allusion to
Beethoven during his stay at Toeplitz. It does not, therefore, appear that
either of these master-minds found any particular pleasure in each other
when they met personally. Beethoven, indeed, dedicated to "the immortal
Goethe" (1812) his composition the _Meeresstille und glueckliche Fahrt_, but
only wrote once to him in 1823 to obtain a subscription from the Grand Duke
of Weimar for his Grand Mass, and received no answer from Goethe. In the
complete edition of Goethe's works Beethoven's name is only once mentioned
by Goethe, when he refers to his funeral obsequies.]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Staudenheim was, like Malfatti, one of the most celebrated
physicians in Vienna. Beethoven, too, was well acquainted with Staudenheim,
but in his regimen he neither followed the prescriptions of Staudenheim nor
of Malfatti.]

[Footnote 3: The Stadt Baden, near Vienna, had been visited on July 16th by
a most destructive conflagration.]

[Footnote 4: Giov. Batt. Polledro, Kapellmeister in Turin, born 1776,
travelled through Germany as a violinist from 1809 to 1812. He gave a
concert in Vienna in March, 1812.]

[Footnote 5: The violin Sonata with pianoforte was probably Op. 47
(composed in 1803 and published in 1805, according to Thayer, No. 111), or
one of his earlier compositions, Op. 30, or 24, or 23.]

93.

TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

Toeplitz, August 15, 1812.

MY MOST DEAR KIND FRIEND,--

Kings and princes can indeed create professors and privy-councillors, and
confer titles and decorations, but they cannot make great men,--spirits
that soar above the base turmoil of this world. There their powers fail,
and this it is that forces them to respect us.[1] When two persons like
Goethe and myself meet, these grandees cannot fail to perceive what such as
we consider great. Yesterday, on our way home, we met the whole Imperial
family; we saw them coming some way off, when Goethe withdrew his arm from
mine, in order to stand aside; and, say what I would, I could not prevail
on him to make another step in advance. I pressed down my hat more firmly
on my head, buttoned up my great-coat, and, crossing my arms behind me, I
made my way through the thickest portion of the crowd. Princes and
courtiers formed a lane for m