He need not be afraid that I shall
belabor him with manuscripts or urge him to untimely or useless
sacrifices...(I need not waste more words over the purity of my
intentions!) But I think it is desirable that, if Kahnt consents
to become editor of the Neue Zeitschrift, I should put him on his
guard about several things beforehand which do not come exactly
within the sphere of your activity, but which may essentially
help to the better success of the undertaking. A couple of hours
will be ample for it, and as I shall not be absent from Weymar
during the coming weeks Kahnt will find me any day. Perhaps it
could be arranged for you to come to Weymar with him for a day,
and then we three can make matters perfectly clear and
satisfactory.
Although it is very difficult to me to make time for the more
necessary things, yet I am quite at your service with a short
article for the trial-number on Wagner's "Rheingold." I had
arranged the article so as to do for the New Year's number - you
shall have it in four to five days. Dispose of it as suits you
best. In case the "Clara Schumann" article does not appear in the
next number of the paper, and we do not have to wait too long for
the trial-number, it would be well perhaps to put it in there.
Possibly it might also be reprinted in the trial-number.
I am glad that you, dear friend, after some "jerks and wrenches,"
have come together again with the pseudo-Musician of the Future,
Rubinstein. He is a clever fellow, possessed of talent and
character in an exceptional degree, and therefore no one can be
more just to him than I have been for years. Still I do not want
to preach to him - he may sow his wild oats and fish deeper in the
Mendelssohn waters, and even swim away if he likes. But sooner or
later I am certain he will give up the apparent and the
formalistic for the organically Real, if he does not want to
stand still. Give him my most friendly greetings; as soon as our
concert affairs are settled here I shall write and invite him to
give one of his orchestral works here.
Do not let yourself be grieved at the ever-widening schism in
Leipzig about which you write to me. We have nothing to lose by
it; we must only understand how to assert our full rights in
order to attain them. That is the task, which will not be
accomplished in a day nor in a year. Indeed, it is as it is
written in the Gospel, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the
laborers are few!" Therefore we are not to make ourselves over-
anxious - only to remain firm, again to remain firm - the rest will
come of itself!
