To-morrow I go by the diligence to Mannheim.  Do not be startled at this.  In foreign countries it is expedient to follow the advice of those who know from experience what ought to be done.  Most of the strangers who go to Stuttgart (N.B., by the diligence) do not object to this detour of eight hours, because the road is better and also the conveyance.  I must now, dearest father, cordially wish you joy of your approaching name-day.  My kind father, I wish you from my heart all that a son can wish for a good father, whom he so highly esteems and dearly loves.  I thank the Almighty that He has permitted you again to pass this day in the enjoyment of perfect health, and implore from Him the boon, that during the whole of my life (and I hope to live for a good many years to come) I may be able to congratulate you every year.  However strange, and perhaps ridiculous, this wish may seem to you, I do assure you it is both sincere and well-intended.

I hope you received my last letter from Strassburg.  I wish to write nothing further of M. Grimm, but it is entirely owing to his stupidity in pressing forward my departure so much, that my sonatas are not yet engraved, or at all events that I have not got them, and when I do I shall probably find them full of mistakes.  If I had only stayed three days longer in Paris, I could have revised them myself and brought them with me.  The engraver was desperate when I told him that I could not correct them, but must commission someone else to do so.  Why?  Because, being resolved not to be three days longer in the same house with Grimm, I told him that on account of the sonatas I was going to stay with Count Sickingen, when he replied, his eyes sparkling with rage, “If you leave my house before you leave Paris, I will never in my life see you again.  In that case do not presume ever to come near me, and look on me as your bitterest enemy.”  Self-control was indeed very necessary.  Had it not been for your sake, who knew nothing about the matter, I certainly should have replied, “Be my enemy; by all means be so.  You are so already, or you would not have prevented me putting my affairs in order here, which would have enabled me to keep my word, to preserve my honor and reputation, and also to make money, and probably a lucky hit; for if I present my sonatas to the Electress when I go to Munich, I shall thus keep my promise, probably receive a present, and make my fortune besides.”  But as it was, I only bowed, and left the room without saying a syllable.  Before quitting Paris, however, I said all this to him, but he answered me like a man totally devoid of sense, or rather like a malicious man who affects to have none.  I have written twice to Herr Heina, but have got no answer.  The sonatas ought to have appeared by the end of September, and M. Grimm was to have forwarded the promised copies immediately to me, so I expected to have found them in Strassburg; but M. Grimm writes to me that he neither hears nor sees anything of them, but as soon as he does they are to be forwarded, and I hope to have them ere long.