Prince Lobkowitz, who sends his greetings, and who now has the sole direction of the opera, will certainly grant you an honorarium commensurate with your deserts. Do not refuse my request, you will find that I shall always be deeply grateful for your compliance. Awaiting your favorable and speedy answer, I subscribe myself
As the date of this letter plainly shows, it was sent to Breitkopf and Härtel together with one to Goethe, with the request that the two be forwarded to their destinations.
As a punishment for your absolute silence I charge you with the immediate delivery of these two letters; a windbag of a Livonian promised to look after a letter to K. for me, but probably, the Livonians like the Russians being windbags and braggarts, he did nothing of the sort, although he gave himself out to be a great friend of his.... If the 3 songs by Goethe are not yet printed hurry with them; I should like soon to present them to Princess Kynsky, one of the handsomest, stoutest women in Vienna--and the songs from Egmont, why are they not yet out, in fact why not out, out, out with the whole of E?--do you perhaps want a close tacked on to an entreacte here and there, that might be, but have it done by a Leipsic ~Corrector~ of the Music. Zeitung, that kind of thing they understand like a slap in the face. Please charge the postage to me--it seems to me, I hear a whisper, that you are looking out for a new wife, to this I ascribe all the confusion mentioned above. I wish you a Xantippe like the wife of the holy Greek Socrates, so that I might see a German Verleger, which is saying a great deal, ~verlegen, ja recht in Verlegenheit~.[91]
Among the sufferers by the ~Finanz-Patent~ were the Ursuline nuns at Graz, whose institution, since 1802, had at no time less than 50 wards and always more than 350 pupils. At this juncture they were excessively poor and in debt. In the hope of gaining them some substantial aid Beethoven's new friend, Varena, now wrote to him offering to pay him properly for the use of some of his compositions in a concert for their benefit to be given on Easter Sunday, March 29. Beethoven at once presented two of his new compositions to the Art Society of Graz for gratuitous use at charity concerts. At the concert on Easter Sunday there were eight numbers, Beethoven being represented by the overture to "King Stephen," the march with chorus from "The Ruins of Athens," the overture to "Egmont," and the Septet. The nuns gained on the occasion the handsome sum of 1836 fl. 24k. Vienna Standard.