Heaven grant that we may say, “Au revoir! soon,” and that we soon may see your “Rhinegold,” were it but a sketch.  If you only knew how Liszt sings your poems!  We adored “Lohengrin” long before Beck had studied it, and still listen and weep when he sings it.  Do finish your “Valkyrie” as soon as possible.  What a work!

Write to us soon.  You say that H. does not know what the matter is.  Who does when the matter is something beautiful and grand?  When a sculptor wants to make a beautiful statue, he takes granite or marble and wearies his strength in cutting it, but granite and marble are less hard than the heart of man.  The sculptor, unless he dies, finishes his statue; when a noble thing has to be done, men are less pliable than granite and marble.

Liszt is indefatigable.  He is wholly devoted to your courage and hope.  I cannot tell you sufficiently how your dear letter has rejoiced me.

C.

164.

X.’s strong box resists a siege even more obstinately than does Silistria; storming it will do no good, and I have consequently nothing satisfactory to tell you.  Returning here, I find a letter from Hulsen, definitely declining the performance of “Tannhauser” at Berlin, and winding up with the following flourish:  “It is obvious that, after two vain attempts to produce this work at the Royal Theatre, the management will not undertake a third as long as I have the honour of being at the head of it.  I am sorry for this.”

From another source I hear, however, that the matter is not to remain in this negative stage, and that in the very highest quarters there is a wish to call me to Berlin.  The event must show; for the present I have only written a few lines in reply to Hulsen.

What is all this story about the Musical Festival?  Why did you bolt?  Let me know when you happen to be in the mood.

After the Rotterdam festival I stayed a few days at Brussels to meet my two daughters.

As soon as my large arrears of correspondence are disposed of, I shall settle down to my “Faust,” which is to be ready by the new year.  The other things (symphonic poems) will also be in print by that time.

I still feel very much fatigued after my hurried journey, and my personal regret at not being able to serve you makes me curtail these lines still further.  Ah! good heavens! what can I say to you while

La vergogna dura

and while there is no means of removing that vergogna?

Your

F. L.

July 28th, 1854.

165.

Dearest Franz,

Did you really think for a moment that I had conceived the idea of giving concerts in order to make propaganda for myself, or to make music, or what not?  Did you not see at once that this plan was purely the result of despair at my miserable pecuniary situation, and that the only question that required an answer was whether or not I could make money by it, money in return for an unheard-of sacrifice, an act of self-abnegation, which probably I should not have been able to go through with after all?  How badly I must have expressed myself!  Excuse me for having given rise to such a misunderstanding, and be thanked all the more for the trouble you took nevertheless.