Note 159 — SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME II.

Beethoven was most easily excited, and consequently very irritable; but when the first burst of passion had subsided, he had an open ear and a yielding heart for the reproofs of his friends. He would consequently be much more contrite than the occasion warranted. I have now before me a note of his which I received at Vienna, and which runs thus:—"What an abominable picture of myself you have shown me! Oh! I feel it: I am not worthy of your friendship. I did not meditate a base action: it was thoughtlessness which urged me to my unpardonable conduct towards you." Thus he fills three pages; and this is the end:—"But no more. I fly to you, and in an embrace ask for my lost friend; and you will restore him to me—to your contrite, faithful, and loving friend, BEETHOVEN." The two letters to Mlle. von Breuning, as above quoted, are of the same tenor. He had quarrelled with Stephen von Breuning (as with what friend did he not quarrel?), but, being made sensible of his grievous wrong, he wrote and acted in the same way, upon which the most heartfelt reconciliation took place; and the sincerest friendship subsisted uninterruptedly between them until Beethoven's death.