Believe me, my dear Lenz, if you wish to get to know the heart of the musical question, come to Germany and come and see me.

Meanwhile don't trouble yourself any more than I do about either "merles" or "obliques hiboux"; go on familiarizing yourself with the smiles and glances of your "chimera," and believe me your most sincerely affectionate and devoted

F. Liszt

Weymar, March 24th, 1857

180. To Eduard Liszt

Best and excellent Eduard,

At last I send you the pianoforte edition of the Mass, which I could not get in order sooner, much as I wished to do so, partly owing to the excess of matters, letters, and business which have been pressing upon me, and partly also on account of my illness, which has obliged me to keep my bed for more than three weeks past. As regards the edition, which can be got up in two styles, according to whether one wants it to be economical or luxurious, I send you word of all that is necessary on the accompanying note-sheet (first page of the score—written by my hand), and beg you, best friend, to use your influence to get the proofs sent to me and to get the work published as quickly as possible. [The Gran Mass.]

Your last letter was again a great pleasure to me, owing to your loving comprehension of my works. That in composing them I do not quite work at haphazard and grope about in the dark, as my opponents in so many quarters reproach me with doing, will be gradually acknowledged by those among them who may be honest enough not to wish entirely to obstruct a right insight into the matter through preconceived views. As I have for years been conscious of the artistic task that lies before me, neither consistent perseverance nor quiet reflection shall be wanting for the fulfillment of it. May God's blessing, without which nothing can prosper and bear fruit, rest on my work!—

I have read with attention and interest the discussions in the Vienna papers, to which the performance of the Preludes and the concert gave rise. As I had previously said to you, the doctrinaire Hanslick could not be favorable to me; his article is perfidious, but on the whole seemly. Moreover it would be an easy matter for me to reduce his arguments to nil, and I think he is sharp enough to know that. On a better opportunity this could also be shown to him, without having the appearance of correcting him. I suppose the initials C. D. in the Vienna paper mean Dorffl—or Drechsler? No matter by whom the critique is written, the author convicts himself in it of such intense narrowness that he will be very welcome to many other people less narrow than himself. His like has already often existed, but is constantly in demand. The musician nowadays cannot get out of the way of all the buzzing. Twenty years ago there were hardly a couple of musical papers in Europe, and the political papers referred only in the most rare cases, and then only very briefly, to musical matters. Now all this is quite different, and with my "Preludes," for instance (which, by the way, are only the prelude to my path of composition), many dozen critics by profession have already pounced on them, in order to ruin me through and through as a composer. I by no means say that present conditions, taken as a whole, are more unfavorable to the musician than the earlier conditions, for all this talk in a hundred papers brings also much good with it, which would not otherwise be so easy to attain;—but simply the thinking and creative artist must not allow himself to be misled by it, and must go his own gait quietly and undisturbed, as they say the hippopotamus does, in spite of all the arrows which rebound from his thick skin. An original thinker says, "As one emblem and coat of arms I show a tree violently blown by the storm, which nevertheless shows its red fruit on all the boughs, with the motto, Dum convellor mitescunt; or also, Conquassatus sed ferax."

When you have an opportunity I beg you to give my best thanks to my old friend Lowy for the letter he wrote me directly after the performance of the "Preludes." I know that he means well towards me, in his own way, which, unfortunately, cannot be mine, because, to me, friendship without heart and flame is something foreign; and I cannot understand, for instance, why at the concert in question he did not take his customary place, but kept back in a corner, as he tells me. Pray when have I given him any occasion to be ashamed of me? Do I not then stand up in the whole world of Art as an honest fellow, who, faithful to his conviction, despising all base means and hypocritical stratagems, strives valiantly and honorably after a high aim? Given that I, deceived by my many-sided experiences (which really cannot be estimated as very slight, since I have lived and worked through the periods—so important for music—of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, as well as Rossini and Meyerbeer), led astray by my seven years' unceasing labour, have hit upon the wrong road altogether, would it be the place of my intimate friend, in the face of the opposition which is set up against me because I bring something new, to blush, hide himself in a corner, and deny me? You did otherwise and better in this, dearest Eduard, and your conduct with Castelli was, as ever, perfectly right. My few friends may take a good example from you, for they assuredly need not let themselves be frightened by the concert which the bullies and boobies raise against my things. I have, as usual, thought over your musical remarks and reflections. The fourth movement of the Concerto, [No. I, in E flat major.] from the Allegro marziale,