Allow me to add these few lines of deepest sympathy to the poem by Cornelius, ["Bein Tode von Julius Reubke" ("On the Death of Julius Reubke"). Cornelius, Poems. Leipzig, 1890.] which lends such fitting words to our feelings of sorrow. Truly no one could feel more deeply the loss which Art has suffered in your Julius, than the one who has followed with admiring sympathy his noble, constant, and successful strivings in these latter years, and who will ever bear his friendship faithfully in mind—the one who signs himself with great esteem
Yours most truly,
F. Liszt
Weymar, June 10th, 1858
204. To Prince Constantin von Hohenzollern-Hechingen
[Autograph in the possession of Herr Alexander Meyer Cohn in Berlin.—This very musical Prince was for years Liszt's patron, and often invited the latter to stay with him at his Silesian residence at Lowenberg, where he kept up an orchestra.]
Monseigneur,
When Your Highness was kind enough to express your views to me respecting your noble design of encouraging in an exceptional manner the progress of musical Art, and to question me as to the best mode of employing a certain sum of money for this object, I think I mentioned to you Mr. Brendel, the editor of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, as the best man to make your liberal intentions bear fruit. As much on account of the perfect uprightness of his character, which is free from all reproach, as for the important and continuous services which his paper and other of his works have rendered to the good cause for many years past, I consider Mr. Brendel entirely worthy of your confidence.
It is not lightly that I put forward this opinion—and I venture to flatter myself that my antecedents will be a sufficient guarantee to Your Highness that in this matter, as in any others in which I may have the honor of submitting any proposition to you, I could follow no other influences, no other counsels, than those of a scrupulous conscience. Putting aside all considerations of vanity or personal advantage foreign to the end in view, my sincere and sole desire is to make Your Highness's intentions and capital the most productive possible. It is with this view that I have openly spoken of the matter to Brendel, whose letter, which I venture to enclose herewith, corresponds, as it seems to me, with the programme in question.
I venture to beg you, Monseigneur, to look into this attentively, and to let me know whether you will grant permission to Brendel to enter into these matters more explicitly by writing to you direct. In the event of the propositions contained in his letter meeting with the approval of Your Highness, as I trust they may do, it would be desirable that you should let him know without too much delay in what manner you would wish your kind intentions carried out.