Note 78 — Chapter X

This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents, remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth, when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the letter renders it nearly worthless.