The spouse of pianist and composer [Anton] Halm wished for a ringlet of Beethoven's hair. She approached Karl Holz to act as intermediary. On his plea the master granted permission to send his great admiress a tuft of hair from a billy goat's beard, as its grey and strong hair could well be compared to his own.
The dame, overjoyed with this relic of her patron saint of the arts, boasted that present far and wide. But soon, she found out what trick Beethoven had played on her. Her husband, who was still deeply saturated with the point d'honneur of an army officer, reported what they had heard in a tetchy letter to the master. He, recognizing the inflicted insult, remedied the incident by cutting himself a ringlet of his own hair and sending it directly to the dame, enclosed in a card requesting forgiveness.
This incident happened in 1826.
Source:
Schindler, Anton: Anton Schindler's Beethoven-Biographie: Neudruck herausgegeben von Dr. Alfred Christian Kalischer, Verlag Schuster & Löffler (1909) p.536f (available at the Internet Archive in original German)
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