Your letter pleases me like a child, my dear good Schober!
Everything comes to him who can wait. But I scarcely can wait to
congratulate you and to see you again in Weymar [as Councillor of
Legation there]. Unhappily it is not probable that I can get
there before the end of next autumn. Keep me in your good books,
therefore, until then, and accept my best thanks in advance for
all you will have done for me and fought for me till then, both
in Weymar and in Hungary!
With regard to Vienna, Lowy writes me almost exactly the same as
you. To tell the truth I am extremely thankful to the Vienna
public, for it was they who, in a critically apathetic moment,
roused and raised me [When he came from Venice to Vienna in the
spring of 1838, to give a concert for the benefit of his
Hungarian compatriots after the inundations, on which occasion,
although Thalberg, Clara Wieck, and Henselt had been there before
him, he aroused the utmost enthusiasm.]; but still I don't feel
the slightest obligation to return there a year sooner or later.
My Vienna journey will pretty much mark the end of my virtuoso
career. I hope to go thence (in the month of August, 1846) to
Constantinople, and on my return to Italy to pass my dramatic
Rubicon or Fiasco.
So much for my settled plans.
What precisely is going to become of me this coming spring and
summer I do not exactly know. In any case to Paris I will not go.
You know why. My incredibly wretched connection with _____ has
perhaps indirectly contributed more than anything to my Spanish-
Portuguese tour. I have no reason to regret having come, although
my best friends tried to dissuade me from it. Sometimes it seems
to me that my thoughts ripen and that my troubles grow
prematurely old under the bright and penetrating sun of Spain...
Many kind messages to Eckermann and Wolff. [Professor Wolff,
editor of "Der poetische Hausschatz."] I will write to the latter
from the Rhine, where I shall at any rate spend a month this
summer (perhaps with my mother and Cosima). If he is still
inclined to return to his and your countries (Denmark and
Sweden), we can make a nice little trip there as a holiday treat.
Good-bye, my dear excellent friend. Allow me to give you as true
a love as I feel is a necessity of my heart! Ever yours,
F. Liszt
What is Villers doing? If you see him tell him to write me a line
to Marseilles, care of M. Boisselot, Pianoforte Maker.
41. To Franz Kroll at Glogau
Weymar, March 26th, 1845
My very dear Kroll,
The arrival of your letter and the packet which accompanied it
decided a matter of warm contest between our friend Lupus
[Presumably Liszt's friend, Professor Wolff (1791-1851).] and
Farfa-Magne-quint-quatorze! [For whom this name was intended is
not clear.] It consisted in making the latter see the difference
between the two German verbs "verwundern" (to amaze) and
"bewundern" (to admire), and to translate clearly, according to
her wits, which are sometimes so ingeniously refractory, what
progress there is from Verwundern (amazement) to Erstaunen
(astonishment). Imagine, now, with what a wonderful solution of
the difficulty your packet and letter furnished us, and how
pleased I was at the following demonstration:
