Let Me Hear From You Soon, My Dear Mr. Reinecke, And Depend, Under All Circumstances, On The Faithful Attachment Of

Yours affectionately and sincerely,

F. Liszt

Eilsen, March 19th, 1851

73. To Dr. Eduard Liszt in Vienna

[An uncle of Liszt's (that is, the younger half-brother of his father), although Liszt was accustomed to call him his cousin: a noble and very important man, who became Solicitor-General in Vienna, where he died February 8th, 1879. Franz Liszt clung to him with ardor, as his dearest relation and friend, and in March, 1867, made over to him the hereditary knighthood.]

[Weimar, 1851]

Dear, excellent Eduard ,

It will be a real joy to me to take part in your joy, and I thank you very cordially for having thought first of me as godfather to your child. I accept that office very willingly, and make sincere wishes that this son may be worthy of his father, and may help to increase the honor of our name. Alas! it has been only too much neglected and even compromised by the bulk of our relations, who have been wanting either in noble sentiments, or in intelligence and talent - some even in education and the first necessary elements - to give a superior impulse to their career and to deserve serious consideration and esteem. Thank God it is otherwise with you, and I cannot tell you what a sweet and noble satisfaction I derive from this. The intelligent constancy which you have used to conquer the numerous difficulties which impeded your way; the solid instruction you have acquired; the distinguished talents you have developed; the healthy and wise morality that you have ever kept in your actions and speech; your sincere filial piety towards your mother; your attachment, resulting from reflection and conviction, to the precepts of the Catholic religion; these twenty years, in fine, that you have passed and employed so honorably, - all this is worthy of the truest praises, and gives you the fullest right to the regard and esteem of honest and sensible people. So I am pleased to see that you are beginning to reap the fruits of your care, and the distinguished post to which you have just been appointed [He had been made Assistant Public Prosecutor in 1850.] seems to justify the hopes that you confided to me formerly, and which I treated, probably wrongly, as so much naive ambition. At the point at which you have arrived it would be entirely out of place for me to poke advice and counsel out of season at you. Permit me, for the sake of the lively friendship I bear you, and the ties of relationship which bind us together, to make this one and only recommendation, "Remain true to yourself!" Remain true to all you feel to be highest, noblest, most right and most pure in your heart! Don't ever try to be or to become something (unless there were opportune and immediate occasion for it), but work diligently and with perseverance to be and to become more and more some one.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 62 of 244
Words from 31978 to 32490 of 127569