In Spite Of All This,
Please Rest Assured, Sir, That I Shall Neglect Nothing That Can
Justify The Confidence You Place In Me, And Pray Accept The Very
Sincere Regards Of
Yours most truly,
F. Liszt
Weymar, March 17th, 1857
I am awaiting with impatience the parcel you promise me, and beg
you to make it as large as possible, so that I may make a
thorough acquaintance with Mr. Seroff's work. Especially be so
good as not to forget the arrangement of Beethoven's latter
Quartets.
179. To Wilhelm von Lenz in St. Petersburg
For pity's sake, dear friend, don't treat me like Moscheles;
don't think I am dead, although I have given you some little
right to think so by my long silence. But there are so many
"demi"-people, and demi-clever people (who are at least as
dangerous to Art as the demi-monde is to morals, according to
Alexandre Dumas), who say such utter stupidities about me in the
papers and elsewhere, that I really should not like to die yet,
if only not to disturb their beautiful business. You were even
complaining of one single whistling blackbird [Merle; means also
a whistling or hissing fellow.] pastorally perched on your book -
what shall I say then of the croaking of that host of ravens and
of obliques hiboux [Oblique owls; the term is repeated
afterwards, and evidently refers to some joke, or else to some
remark of Lenz's. - Translator's note.] that spreads like an
"epidemic cordon" all the length of the scores of my Symphonic
Poems? - Happily I am not made of such stuff as to let myself be
easily disconcerted by their "concert," and I shall continue
steadfastly on my way to the end, without troubling about
anything but to do what I have to do - which will be done, I can
promise you. The rest of your "Beethoven," of which you speak,
has never reached me, and for six months past I have not had any
news of B., who, I am afraid, finds that he is clashing with some
rather difficult editorial circumstances, but from which I
presume he will have the spirit to free himself satisfactorily. A
propos of Beethoven, here is Oulibicheff, who has just hurled
forth a volume which I might well compare with the dragons and
other sacred monsters in papier-mache, with which the brave
Chinese attempted to frighten the English at the time of the last
war. - The English simply replied by bombs, which was the best
mode of procedure. If I find time in the course of the summer, I
shall answer Oulibicheff very respectfully in a brochure which
may be a pretty big one. For the moment I am still pinned to my
bed by a lot of boils which are flourishing on my legs, and which
I consider as the doors of exodus for the illness which has been
troubling me rather violently since the end of October.
Mr. Stassoff, having written to me about Mr. Seroff, I wrote him
word quite lately that I should have real pleasure in making
acquaintance with the arrangement for two pianos of Beethoven's
later Quartets, etc.
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