Your article about the “Harold” symphony was very beautiful, and has warmed my heart.  I shall write to Berlioz tomorrow; he must send me his scores.  He will never know me thoroughly; his ignorance of German prevents this; he will always see me in vague and deceptive outline.  But I will honestly use my advantage over him, and bring him nearer to me.

How are matters with you?  I hear about you now and then, but you are silent.

Adieu!  Imagine a very long sigh here.

197.

Dearest Richard,

I enclose a letter from T. Hagen, of New York, where he has been settled for about a year, and does good work as a musician and musical author.  The letters in the “Leipzig Signale,” signed “Butterbrod,” are his, and some time ago he published a volume about music in its relation to social interests, the exact title of which I cannot remember.  He is a friend of Klindworth’s, and associates with your admirers and partisans.  With Mason Brothers I have some connection through William Mason, one of my pupils, who lived eighteen months in Weymar.  As far as I know, the firm is solid and respectable.

Although I do not suppose that you will accept the offer of conducting concerts in America during next winter, I ask you to let me have an answer (addressed to me) soon, because I shall wait for your letter concerning this matter, in order to forward it to Hagen.  A Beethoven musical festival in connection with the inauguration of the Beethoven statue at Boston would not be amiss, and the pecuniary result might be very favourable.

Johanna Wagner arrived here the day before yesterday, and she and her parents will stay a week in Weymar with her sister, Frau Ritter.  I spent several hours with her last night.

“Tannhauser” is to be produced at Berlin in December.

How far have you got with the “Valkyrie?” I am looking forward to our meeting in November.

The Princess and the Child are still in Paris.  They study carefully the exhibition of pictures, and see a good deal of Scheffer, Delacroix, and other artistic notabilities, which suits them exactly.  About the 25th of this month I expect them here, where, in the meantime, I am terribly bored by the load of tedious things which are imposed upon me, and with the relation of which I will not trouble you.  On the 16th the theatre will be opened with Nicolai’s “Merry Wives.”  After that we shall have “The Huguenots,” “Cellini,” and Verdi’s “I Due Foscari.”  “Lohengrin” will not be given just yet because Ortrud (Frau Knopp) has left us, and the new prima donna, Fraulein Woltendorff, will at least require three or four months to learn the part.  But as “Tannhauser” and the “Flying Dutchman” have proved “draws,” they will be sure to be thrashed out thoroughly.

I, for my part, am sick of the whole theatrical business, but I am compelled, to stick to it in a half-and-half sort of way, because, without me, things would probably be still worse.