Been talking so much of you, day and night, that it hardly
occurred to me to write to you. Today, however, to my great
astonishment, I get a fresh token of your friendly remembrance,
and I certainly will not delay thanking you many times for it, so
I have just left a charming party of very pretty women in order
to write these few lines to you. But the truth is you need hardly
thank me for this little sacrifice, for it is a great pleasure to
me to be able to have a little chat with you.
The "Carneval" and the "Fantasiestucke" have interested me
excessively. I play them really with delight, and God knows that
I can't say as much of many things. To speak frankly and freely,
it is absolutely only Chopin's compositions and yours that have a
powerful interest for me.
The rest do not deserve the honor of being mentioned...at least,
with a few exceptions, - to be conciliatory, like Eusebius.
In six weeks to two months I shall send you my twelve Studies and
a half-dozen of "Fantasiestucke" ("Impressions et Poemes") - I
consider them less bad than others of my making. I shall be happy
to think that they do not displease you.
May I confess to you that I was not very much struck with
Henselt's Studies, and that I found them not up to their
reputation? I don't know whether you share my opinion, but they
appear to me, on the whole, very careless. They are pretty to
listen to, they are very pretty to look at, the effect is
excellent, the edition (thanks to our friend Hofmeister) is most
carefully done; but, all counted, I question whether H. is
anything but a distinguished mediocrity. [How highly Liszt
thought, later on, of Henselt's Concerto and other of his
compositions is well known, and is spoken of in a subsequent
letter to Baroness Wrangel, in May, 1883.] For the rest, he is
very young, and will doubtless develop. Let us, at least, hope
so.
I am extremely sorry that I cannot come and pay you a little
visit at Leipzig at present. It is one of my keenest desires to
make your personal acquaintance and to pass some days with you.
But as that is not possible now, let us, at least, try not to be
entirely separated, and let us combat, as far as we can, the
laziness about writing, which is, I think, equally in us both.
In a fortnight I am returning to Venice. I shall be back in Milan
at the time of the coronation (towards the end of August). Next
winter I expect to pass in Rome, if the cholera or some other
plague does not stop it.
