My daughter Blandine has married at Florence, on October 22nd, Emile Ollivier, avocat au barreau de Paris, and democratic deputy for the city of Paris.  I am longing to get back to my work soon, but unfortunately, the inevitable interruptions caused by my innumerable social relations and obligations, give me little hope for this winter.  I wish I could live with you on the Lake of Zurich, and go on writing quietly.

God be with you.

Your

F. Liszt.  My dear, dear Franz,

I want you to receive these lines just as you are going to the first performance of your “Dante.”  Can I help feeling grieved to the very depth of my existence, when I am compelled to be far from you on such an evening, and cannot follow the impulse of my heart, which, were I but free, would take me to you in all circumstances, and from a distance of hundreds of miles in order to unite myself with you and your soul on such a wedding-day?  I shall be with you, at least in the spirit, and if your work succeeds as it must succeed, do honour to my presence by taking notice of nothing that surrounds you, neither of the crowd, which must always remain strange to us, even if it takes us in for a moment, nor of the connoisseur, nor of the brother artist, for we have none.  Only look in my eye just as if you would do if you were playing to me, and be assured that it will return your glance blissfully, brightly, and gladly, with that intimate understanding which is our only reward.

Take my hand and take my kiss.  It is such a kiss as you gave me when you accompanied me home one evening last year—­you remember, after I told you my sad tale.  Many things may lose their impression upon me.  The wonderful sympathy which was in your words during that homeward walk, the celestial essence of your nature, will follow me everywhere as my most beautiful remembrance.  Only one thing I can place by the side of it, I mean that which you tell me in your works, and especially in your “Dante.”  If you tell the same thing to others today, remember that you can do so in the sense alone in which we display our body, our face, our existence to the world.  We wear ourselves out thereby, and do not expect to receive love and comprehension in return.  Be mine today, wholly mine, and feel assured that by that means you will be all that you are and can be.

Good luck on your way through hell and purgatory!  In the supernal glow with which you have surrounded me, and in which the world has disappeared from my eyes, we will clasp hands.

Good luck!

Your

Richard.

250.

January 1st, 1858.