Should you be of another opinion, allow me at least to keep you
from too greatly compromising yourself, so near to the doors of
the immaculate Berlin critics, and not to drag you with myself
into the corruption of my own juggling tone-poems. Your dear wife
(to whom I beg you to remember me most kindly) might be angry
with me for it, and I would not on any account be put into her
bad books. Instead of conducting my Symphonic Poems, rather give
lectures at home of the safe passport of Riehl's "Haus-Musik,"
and take well to heart the warning,
"Ruckkehr zum Mass." ["A returning within bounds." A footnote by
Liszt follows: "Dabei wird naturlich das Mass der
Mittelmassigkeit als einzig massgebend verstanden." ("By this is
of course understood the bounds of mediocrity as the one
limitation.") A play on the words, "Mass," "Massigkeit," and
"Massgebend."]
On this road alone can you soon attain a conductor's post, and
the "esteem" due to you as a music director, both from musicians
and people of rank.
For the rest you would entirely misconstrue my good advice if you
thought you could see in it only a pretext for not keeping my
former promise of coming to see you at Stettin.
