(Said to Holz, when the latter begged him not to sell the ring which
King Frederick William III, of Prussia, had sent to him instead of money
or an order in return for the dedication of the ninth symphony. “Master,
keep the ring,” Holz had said, “it is from a king.” Beethoven made his
remark “with indescribable dignity and self-consciousness.”)
[On his deathbed he said to little Gerhard von Breuning: “Know that I am
an artist.”]
[At the height of the popular infatuation for Rossini (1822) he said to
his friends: “Well, they will not be able to rob me of my place in the
history of art.”]
180. “Prince, what you are you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am
through my own efforts. There have been thousands of princes and will be
thousands more; there is only one Beethoven!”
(According to tradition, from a letter which he wrote to Prince
Lichnowsky when the latter attempted to persuade him to play for some
French officers on his estate in Silesia. Beethoven went at night to
Troppau, carrying the manuscript of the (so-called) “Appassionata”
sonata, which suffered from the rain.)