save the King," which announced the British victory. Anon followed some
marches, with the occasional bang of the bass drum to "disfigure or
present" the distant cannon; and then there was a pause, and the people
began to get up. I was confounded, looked towards the orchestra, and they
were moving away; and I discovered I had heard the whole--alas! the day.
What it meant, what Beethoven meant by writing it, how he could be so
purely external, how he could so use the orchestra, I cannot comprehend.
Perhaps it was a curious relaxation with him, as artists imitate other
instruments upon their own--perhaps it is a joke--but that it was a sad
disappointment to me admits no perhaps. Since the limitations of life
appear most forcibly to correspondents in limited sheets of paper, let me
bear away abruptly from music. My German progresses finely. I have read
Novalis's poetry, and am just now finishing the "Lehrjahre." I read three
or four hours daily, and am pleased at my progress. Burrill and I have
just finished Johnson's "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry" and Buel's
book. I read to him daily from Bunyan. I am also busy with Beaumont and
Fletcher, Paul's Epistles, and St. Augustine. You will easily imagine that
my whole day is devoted to literature. After dinner, at 5 o'clock, I sally
down Broadway for exercise; and in the evening, if I go to no concert,
usually seek my room and books. To-night, for the first time, I am going
out to a ball at a friend's, the girl of whom you have heard me speak as
singing so well. Cranch I meet very rarely. Have been only once to see
him. W.H. Channing do not yet know. At his meeting I see Isaac and C.P.
Cranch, and Rufus Dawes, and Parke Godwin, William Chace, and a host of
the unconverted and heretical. Him I do not yet know personally, nor
Vathek. His enthusiastic manner, and the tranquil fervor of his character,
charm me very much.

I find that I do not care to go after people. Perhaps I have been rather
too much with them; at all events, I will go to see none for curiosity.