“Two affectionate words for a farewell would have sufficed me; alas! not even one was said to me!  The Countess von der Recke sends me a pressure of the hand; it is something, and I kiss her hands as a token of gratitude; but Amalie has not even saluted me.  Every day I am angry at myself in not having profited by her sojourn at Teplitz, seeking her companionship sooner.  It is a frightful thing to make the acquaintance of such a sweet creature, and to lose her immediately; and nothing is more insupportable than thus to have to confess one’s own foolishness....  Be happy, if suffering humanity can be.  Give, on my part, to the countess a cordial but respectful pressure of the hand, and to Amalie a right ardent kiss—­if nobody there can see.”

In Nohl’s collection of Beethoven’s letters is an inscription in the album of the singer, Mine.  “Auguste” Sebald (a mistake for “Amalie").  The inscription reads, as Lady Wallace ungrammatically Englishes it: 

  “Ludwig van Beethoven: 
  Who even if you would
  Forget you never should.”

In another work, Nohl mentions the existence of a mass of short notes from Beethoven to her, showing “not so much the warm, effervescent passion of youth, as the deep, quieter sentiment of personal esteem and affection, which comes later in life, and, in consequence, is much more lasting.”  One of the letters he quotes.  It runs: 

“What are you dreaming about, saying that you can be nothing to me?  We will talk this over by word of mouth.  I am ever wishing that my presence may bring peace and rest to you, and that you could have confidence in me.  I shall hope to be better to-morrow, and that we shall be able to pass a few hours together in the enjoyment of nature while you remain here.  Good night, dear Amalie; many, many thanks for the proof you give me of your attachment to your friend,

“BEETHOVEN.”

There are other of these notes in Thayer’s biography.  She seems to have called the composer “a tyrant,” and he has much playfulness of allusion to the idea, and there is much about the wretchedness of his health.  Amalie Sebald seems to have been of great solace to him, but, like all the rest, she married some one else, Justice-councillor Krause.

It was for her that Beethoven composed his cycle of songs, “To the far-away love” [An die ferne Geliebte], according to Thayer; and of her that he wrote to Ries:  “All good wishes to your wife.  I, alas, have none; I have found but one, and her I can never possess.”

Years later he said to his friend Giannatasio that five years before he had loved unhappily; he would have considered marriage the happiness of his life, but it was “not to be thought of for a moment, almost an utter impracticability, a chimera.”  Still, he said, his love was as strong as ever; he had never found such harmony, and, though he never proposed, he could never get her out of his mind.

In 1812 Carl Maria von Weber was in Berlin, and became ever after a devoted admirer of Amalie’s virtues, her intellect, and her beauty.