Beethoven (Rolland)/Wegeler and Eleonore von Breuning to Beethoven
VII.
Letter from Wegeler and Eleonore von Breuning to Beethoven.
Coblentz, 28 December, 1825.
My dear old Louis.
I cannot allow one of Ries' ten children to leave Vienna without recalling him to your remembrance. If during the twenty-eight years since I left Vienna, you have not received a long letter from me every two months, you must put it down to your own silence after the first letters which I sent you. It should not be so and especially now that we other old people live so entirely in the past and derive our chief pleasure in recollections of our youth. For me at least, my acquaintance and my firm friendship to you, thanks to your good mother whom God now blesses, is a guiding star in my life, to wards which I turn with pleasure. . . .I raise my eyes to you as to a hero, and I am proud to be able to say: 'I have had some influence on his development; he confided in me his ambitions and his dreams; and when later he was so often misunderstood, I knew quite well what he wanted.' God be praised that I have been able to speak of you with my wife, and now with my children! My mother-in-law's house was more your home than your own home, especially after the death of your good mother. Tell us still once more, 'I think of you both in joy and in sorrow.' A man, even when he has risen as high as you, is only happy once in his life: when he is young. Your thoughts should hark back happily many times to the stones of Bonn, Godesburg, Pépinière, etc. Now I want to speak of myself, of ourselves, to give you an example of how you ought to reply to me.
After my return from Vienna in 1796, things went rather badly with me. For a long time I had to rely for a living on my consultations as a doctor, and that lasted for several years in this wretched country, before I could even make a bare livelihood. Then I became a professor with a salary, and I married. A year later I had a daughter who is still living and who is quite accomplished. In addition to a very clear head, she has the quiet ways of her father; and she plays admirably some of Beethoven's Sonatas. She can claim no merit for this, for it is an inborn gift with her. In 1807 I had a son who is now studying medicine in Berlin. In four years I shall send him to Vienna. Will you look after him for me? I celebrated, in August, my both birthday by a party of sixty friends and acquaintances, including the chief people of Bonn. I have lived here since 1807, and have a fine house and a good position. My superiors are satisfied with me, and the King has given me some orders and medals. Lore and I are content. Now that I have told you all about our salves, it is your turn. . . .
Do you never wish to turn your eyes from the tower of St. Stephen's? Has travel no charms for you? Do you never wish to see the Rhine again? With every good wish from Madam Lore and myself,
Your very old friend,
Wegeler.
Coblentz, 29 December, 1825.
Dear Beethoven—dear for such a long time!
It was my wish that Wegeler should write to you again. Now that this is done, I should like to add a few words—not only to recall myself to your remembrance, but to renew the pressing question whether you have not a desire to see the Rhine and your birthplace again, and to give Wegeler and me the greatest joy possible. Our Lenchen thanks you for so many happy hours; she delights in hearing us speak of you; he knows all the little adventures of our happy youthful days at Bonn—of the quarrel and the reconciliation. . . .How happy she would be to see you! Unfortunately, the little one has no special aptitude for music; but she has done so much by application and perseverance that she can play your Sonatas, Variations, etc.; and as music is always the greatest relaxation for Wegeler, she is thus able to give him many happy hours. Julius has some talent for music, but up to the present it has been neglected; for the last six months, he has been learning the violoncello with zest and pleasure; and as he has a good teacher in Berlin I believe that he will get on well. The two children are tall and resemble their father, they also possess that fine cheery disposition which Wegeler, thanks to God, has not even yet lost. . . . He takes great pleasure in playing the themes of your Variations; the old ones have the greater preference, but he oftens plays the new ones, too, with incredible patience. Your Opferlied is placed above everything. Wegeler never goes to his room without putting it on the piano. So, dear Beethoven, you can see how lasting and real a thing is the remembrance which we always have of you! Tell us then just once that this is not worth less to you, and that we are not quite forgotten. If it were not so difficult to do as one wishes, we should already have been to Vienna to see my brother, and have the pleasure of seeing you again; but such a journey is out of the question now that our son is at Berlin. Wegeler has told you how everything goes with us—we should do wrong to complain. Even the most difficult times have been better for us than for hundreds of others. The greatest blessing is that we all keep well and that we have such good and noble children. Yes, they have hardly given us any trouble, and they are such merry and happy little people. Lenchen has had only one great grief; it was when our poor Burscheid died: a loss none of us will ever forget. Adieu, dear Beethoven, and think of us as the most loyal of friends.
Eln. Wegeler.