Your qualities, your faults (if
you have any), your character and temper, all please me and
attach me to you. You know that I flatter myself I can understand
and appreciate you...Should you see any great difficulty in
joining me somewhere next autumn-at Venice, for example - and in
making a European tour with me? Answer me frankly on this matter.
And once more, the question of money need not be considered. As
long as we are together (and I should like you to have at least
three free years before you) my purse will be yours, on the sole
condition that you consent to undertake the management of our
expenses, - and that you are thoroughly convinced beforehand of
the gratitude I shall feel towards you.
Excuse me, my dear good friend, for entering so plainly into
matters, but we have talked together too openly, it seems to me,
for it to be possible that your delicate feeling on certain
points should be wounded by this.
I have sent back Kiss, of Dresden. He is a good fellow, but a
little awkward, and wanting in a certain point of honor, without
which a man is not a man as I understand the word. So I am alone
now, and am not going to have any one tacked on to me. A former
pupil of mine, Monsieur Hermann, has undertaken to arrange my
concerts, which is a great relief to me. A propos of concerts, I
gave six (in nine days!) at Prague, three at Dresden, and the
same number at Leipzig (in twelve days) - so I am perfectly tired
out, and feel great need of rest. That was good, wasn't it?
Adieu, my dear good friend-let me hear from you soon (address 19,
Rue Pigalle, Paris), and depend entirely upon me - nunc et semper.
Yours ever sincerely,
F. Liszt
Will you be so good as to go to Diabelli's [Music publisher in
Vienna] when you pass by, and advise him again not to publish the
third part of the Hungarian Melodies (which I sent him by Hartel)
without first sending me a proof to Paris to correct. Adieu.
Best remembrances to Kriehuber [A well-known Vienna painter and
lithographer, from whom a number of Liszt portraits have come.]
and Lowy. Why does not the latter write to me?
26. To Maurice Schlesinger, Editor of the Gazette Musicale in
Paris
[Given by L. Ramann, "Franz Liszt," vol. ii., i.]
Sir,
Allow me to protest against an inexact assertion in your last
number but one: -
"Messieurs Liszt and Cramer have asked for the Legion of Honor,"
etc.
I do not know if M. Cramer (who has just been nominated) has
obtained the cross.
In any case I think that you, like every one else, will approve
of a nomination so perfectly legitimate.
As to myself, if it be true that my name has figured in the list
of candidates, this can only have occurred entirely without my
knowledge.
