refuge! and yet it is my sole remaining one. You will forgive my thus
appealing to your kindly sympathies at a time when your own position is sad
enough. Stephan Breuning is here, and we are together almost every day; it
does me so much good to revive old feelings! He has really become a capital
good fellow, not devoid of talent, and his heart, like that of us all,
pretty much in the right place. [See No. 13.]

I have very charming rooms at present, adjoining the Bastei [the ramparts],
and peculiarly valuable to me on account of my health [at Baron
Pasqualati's]. I do really think I shall be able to arrange that Breuning
shall come to me. You shall have your Antiochus [a picture], and plenty of
my music besides--if, indeed, it will not cost you too much. Your love of
art does honestly rejoice me. Only say how it is to be done, and I will
send you all my works, which now amount to a considerable number, and are
daily increasing. I beg you will let me have my grandfather's portrait as
soon as possible by the post, in return for which I send you that of his
grandson, your loving and attached Beethoven. It has been brought out here
by Artaria, who, as well as many other publishers, has often urged this on
me. I intend soon to write to Stoffeln [Christoph von Breuning], and
plainly admonish him about his surly humor. I mean to sound in his ears our
old friendship, and to insist on his promising me not to annoy you further
in your sad circumstances. I will also write to the amiable Lorchen. Never
have I forgotten one of you, my kind friends, though you did not hear from
me; but you know well that writing never was my _forte_, even my best
friends having received no letters from me for years. I live wholly in my
music, and scarcely is one work finished when another is begun; indeed, I
am now often at work on three or four things at the same time. Do write to
me frequently, and I will strive to find time to write to you also. Give my
remembrances to all, especially to the kind Frau Hofräthin [von Breuning],
and say to her that I am still subject to an occasional _raptus_. As for