like my Vienna friends. No! you are one of those whom the soil of my
fatherland is wont to bring forth; how often I wish that you were with me,
for your Beethoven is very unhappy. You must know that one of my most
precious faculties, that of hearing, is become very defective; even while
you were still with me I felt indications of this, though I said nothing;
but it is now much worse. Whether I shall ever be cured remains yet to be
seen; it is supposed to proceed from the state of my digestive organs, but
I am almost entirely recovered in that respect. I hope indeed that my
hearing may improve, but I scarcely think so, for attacks of this kind are
the most incurable of all. How sad my life must now be!--forced to shun all
that is most dear and precious to me, and to live with such miserable
egotists as ----, &c. I can with truth say that of all my friends
Lichnowsky [Prince Carl] is the most genuine. He last year settled 600
florins on me, which, together with the good sale of my works, enables me
to live free from care as to my maintenance. All that I now write I can
dispose of five times over, and be well paid into the bargain. I have been
writing a good deal latterly, and as I hear that you have ordered some
pianos from ----, I will send you some of my compositions in the
packing-case of one of these instruments, by which means they will not cost
you so much.

To my great comfort, a person has returned here with whom I can enjoy the
pleasures of society and disinterested friendship,--one of the friends of
my youth [Stephan von Breuning]. I have often spoken to him of you, and
told him that since I left my fatherland, you are one of those to whom my
heart specially clings. Z. [Zmeskall?] does not seem quite to please him;
he is, and always will be, too weak for true friendship, and I look on him
and ---- as mere instruments on which I play as I please, but never can
they bear noble testimony to my inner and outward energies, or feel true
sympathy with me; I value them only in so far as their services deserve.