Your

BEETHOVEN.

[Footnote 1: This is possibly the humorous visiting-card that Beethoven
sometimes sent to his friends, with the inscription _Wir bleiben die Alten_
("We are the same as ever"), and on reversing the card, a couple of asses
stared them in the face! Frau Eyloff told me of a similar card that her
brother Schindler once got from Beethoven on a New Year's day.]


220.

TO BARONESS DOROTHEA VON ERTMANN.[1]

Feb. 23, 1817.

MY DEAR AND VALUED DOROTHEA CECILIA,--

You have no doubt often misjudged me, from my apparently forbidding manner;
much of this arose from circumstances, especially in earlier days, when my
nature was less understood than at present. You know the manifestations of
those self-elected apostles who promote their interests by means very
different from those of the true Gospel. I did not wish to be included in
that number. Receive now what has been long intended for you,[2] and may it
serve as a proof of my admiration of your artistic talent, and likewise of
yourself! My not having heard you recently at Cz---- [Czerny's] was owing
to indisposition, which at last appears to be giving way to returning
health.