I have not neglected your passport affair, and have induced the Grand Duke and another important person to recommend you specially in Paris.  I hope these transactions will not be without result.

The changes you have made in the “Faust” overture are excellent, and the work has decidedly gained by them.  I have sent the score to the Hartels.  If you are satisfied with an honorarium of twenty louis d’or, write to me simply, “Yes,” and the full score and parts will soon be published.  To a larger honorarium the Hartels would not agree, but they will make the edition better and handsomer than would any one else, and I should therefore advise you to answer me in the affirmative.

I shall have to work hard for several months to come.  The Cardinal Primate of Hungary has set me the task of composing a grand mass for the inauguration of the cathedral of Gran.  The ceremony will take place in August at the latest.  The Emperor will be present, and I have undertaken to conduct the mass, etc., for which purpose I have to be in Gran (three hours’ distance from Pesth) a month before.

This task gives me much pleasure, and I hope to produce an edifying work.

Farewell, dearest Richard, and write soon to

Your

Franz.

March 12th, 1855.

The letter to Bruzot is meant for the firm of Erard; if he should be absent, give it to the representative of that firm.

Your letter to B. has been forwarded.

179.

Good gracious! here comes your and M.’s dear, dear letter!  In my terrible mood, it has quite upset me.  You will have heard of my letter containing my disgraceful decision regarding “Tannhauser” in Berlin.  In this matter I feel in turns trivial, sublime, and contemptible.  The latter mood you have just revived in me, and I am inclined to repent that I have been trivial.  But it is almost too late now.  By giving up “Tannhauser,” and at last even “Lohengrin,” to the theatres without reserve, I made such humiliating concessions to the reality of our miserable artistic circumstances that I can scarcely sink much lower.  Once again I say, How proud and free was I when I reserved these works to you for Weimar; now I am a slave and absolutely powerless.  One inconsistency involves another, and I can dull my unpleasant feeling only by being still more proud and contemptuous, in the sense that I look upon “Tannhauser” and “Lohengrin” as altogether done with and no longer belonging to me, and that I keep my new creations all the more sacred for myself and my true friends.  This is my only comfort.  What I am creating at present shall never see the light except in perfectly congenial surroundings; on this I will in future concentrate all my strength, my pride, and my resignation.  If I die before having produced these works, I shall leave them to you; and if you die without having been able to produce them in a dignified manner, you must burn them:  let that be settled.