The Orpheus article was sent to you yesterday. Perhaps it would
still be possible to let it appear in the next number of the
paper; if not, then it can appear the following week. The order
of succession which I gave you by letter appears to me the right
one, and begins with the Orpheus. This article is moreover as
good as new, for, as your paper allowed me more space, I profited
by it to make the earlier articles twice as long.["Gesammelte
Schriften." vol. iii., 1.]
There are several points in your writing that we will soon talk
over viva voca. I am still really very weak today, and merely
wanted to write to thank you, and to tell you of my speedy advent
in Leipzig (probably next Tuesday or Wednesday).
Yours in friendship,
F. Liszt
Wednesday, April 26th, 1854
Your commissions to Cornelius and letter to Cotta have been
attended to.
113. To Louis Kohler
Dear Friend,
I am going once more to give you a pleasure. By today's post you
will receive Richard Wagner's medallion. A friend of mine, Prince
Eugene Sayn-Wittgenstein, modeled it last autumn in Paris, and I
consider it the best likeness that exists of Wagner.
A thousand thanks for all the kind things you write and think of
me. I very much wish that you should be in agreement with my
present and my next work. If I could only dispose of my time
better! But it is a wretched misery to have to spend one's time
upon so many useless things and people, when one's head is quite
full of other things! - Well, it must be so. God grant only
patience and perseverance! I cannot remember for certain whether
I have already sent you the Avant-propos to my Symphonic Poems,
which I have in the meantime had printed on the occasion of their
performance here. In any case I send them, together with the
portrait for which you asked. I am now working at the ninth
number (Hungaria) - the eight others are perfectly ready; but it
will certainly be next spring before they appear in score.
Of pianoforte music I have nothing more to send you (until the
"Annees de Pelerinage" appear at Schott's), except the little
"Berceuse," which has found a place in the "Nuptial Album" of
Haslinger. Perhaps the continuous pedal D-flat will amuse you.
The thing ought properly to be played in an American rocking-
chair with a Nargileh for accompaniment, in tempo comodissimo con
sentimento, so that the player may, willy-nilly, give himself up
to a dreamy condition, rocked by the regular movement of the
chair-rhythm.
