For
the great majority of Germans there is no sort of hesitation as
to the only side it remains to them to take."
The Princess having very obligingly taken the trouble to tell you
my wishes with regard to my money matters, I need not trouble you
further with them, and confine myself to thanking you very
sincerely for your exactness, and for the discerning integrity
with which you watch over the sums confided to your care. May
events grant that they may prosper, and that they may not become
indispensable to us very soon. -
Before the end of the winter I will send you a parcel of music
(of my publications), which will be a distraction for your
leisure hours. I endeavour to work the utmost and the best that I
can, though sometimes a sort of despairing fear comes over me at
the thought of the task I should like to fulfill, for which at
least ten years more of perfect health of body and mind will be
necessary to me.
Give my tender respects to Madame Liszt; you two form henceforth
my father's entire family; and believe in the lively and
unalterable friendship of
Your truly devoted,
F. Liszt
74. To Count Casimir Esterhazy
[Autograph (without address) in the possession of Herr Albert
Cohn, bookseller in Berlin. - The addressee was presumably Count
Esterhazy, whose guest Liszt was in Presburg in 1840.]
Let me thank you very sincerely for your kind remembrance, dear
friend, and let me also tell you how much I regret that my
journey to Hohlstein cannot come to pass during your short stay
there. But as by chance you already find yourself in Germany,
will you not push on some fine day as far as Weymar? - I should
have very great pleasure in seeing you there and in receiving
you - not in the manorial manner in which you received me at
Presburg, but very cordially and modestly as a conductor, kept by
I know not what strange chance of fate at a respectful distance
from storms and shipwrecks! -
For three weeks past a very sad circumstance has obliged me to
keep at Eilsen, where I had already passed some months of last
winter. The reigning Prince is, as you have perhaps forgotten,
the present proprietor of one of your estates, - the Prince of
Schaumburg-Lippe. If by chance you are owing him a debt of
politeness, the opportunity of putting yourself straight would be
capital for me. Nevertheless I dare not count too much on the
attractions of the grandeur and charms of Buckeburg! and I must
doubtless resign myself to saying a longer farewell to you.
Let me know by Lowy of Vienna where I shall address to you some
pieces in print which you can look over at any leisure hour, and
which I shall be delighted to offer you. I will add to them later
the complete collection of my "Hungarian Rhapsodies," which will
now form a volume of nearly two hundred pages, of which I shall
prepare a second edition next winter. Hearty and affectionate
remembrances from
Yours ever,
F. Liszt
Eilsen, June 6th, 1851
75. To Theodor Uhlig, Chamber Musician in Dresden
[Autograph in the possession of Herr Hermann Scholtz, Chamber
virtuoso in Dresden. - The addressee, who was an intimate friend
of Wagner's (see "Wagner's Letters to Uhlig, Fischer, Heine" -
London: H. Grevel & Co., 1890), gained for himself a lasting name
by his pianoforte score of Lohengrin. He died January, 1853.]
The perusal of your most kind and judicious article in Brendel's
Musical Gazette on the "Goethe Foundation" [By Liszt, 1850. See
"Gesammelte Schriften," vol. v.] confirms me in the belief that I
could not fail to be understood by you in full intelligence of
the cause. Allow me then, my dear Mr. Uhlig, to thank you very
cordially for this new proof of your obligingness and of your
sympathy - in French, as this language becomes more and more
familiar and easy to me, whereas I am obliged to make an effort
to patch up more or less unskillfully my very halting German
syntax.
The very lucid explanation that you have made of my pamphlet, as
well as the lines with which you have prefaced and followed it,
have given me a real satisfaction, and one which I did not expect
to receive through that paper, which, if I am not mistaken, had
hitherto shown itself somewhat hostile to me personally, and to
the ideas which they do me the small honor to imagine I possess.
This impression has been still further increased in me by reading
Mr. Brendel's following article on R. Wagner, which seems to me a
rather arranged transition between the former point of view of
the Leipzig school or pupils and the real point of view of
things. The quotation Brendel makes of Stahr's article on the
fifth performance of "Lohengrin" at Weymar, evidently indicates a
conversion more thought than expressed on the part of the former,
and at the performance of "Siegfried" I am persuaded that Leipzig
will not be at all behindhand, as at "Lohengrin."
I do not know whether Mr. Wolf (the designer) has had the
pleasure of meeting you yet at Dresden; I had commissioned him to
make my excuses to you for the delay in sending the manuscript of
Wiland. Unfortunately it is impossible for me to think of
returning to Weymar before the end of July, and the manuscript is
locked up among other papers which I could not put into strange
hands. Believe me that I am really vexed at these delays, the
cause of which is so sad for me.
If by chance you should repass by Cologne and Minden, it would be
very nice if you could stay a day at Buckeburg (Eilsen), where I
am obliged to stay till the 15th of July.
