_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _July_ 1886.
SIR,—Your foolish letter was unduly received. There may be hidden
fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam spontaneous the thing was. I
could tinker and tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper, but scorned the act
with a Threnody, which was poured forth like blood and water on the
groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) remained
unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: crystallised emotion, the
statement and the reconciliation of the sorrows of the race and the
individual, is obviously no more to you than supping sawdust. Well,
well. If ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably be a
Passepied and fugue in G (or D).
The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged Spanish
filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some freedom (1) the
refrain of _Martini’s Moutons_; (2) _Sul margine d’un rio_, arranged for
the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase of Bach’s
musette (Sweet Englishwoman, No. 3), {37} the rest of the musette being
one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health.
All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R.
L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged
and melancholy croppers. . . . I find one can get a notion of music very
nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have
arranged _La dove prende_, almost to the end, for two melodious
forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler _Colomba o
tortorella_ for the same instruments.
This day is published
The works of Ludwig van Beethoven
arranged
and wiederdurchgearbeiteted
for two melodious forefingers
by,
Sir,—Your obedient servant,