Here is the letter for the Grand Master de Luttichau, which M. de Ziegesar has just written in your honor and glory, with all the good grace and obligingness which he keeps for you.
As regards introductions to Berlin there is a provoking contretemps for you. H.R.H. the Princess of Prussia will pass the winter at Coblentz.
Meyerbeer, to whom I beg you to remember me respectfully, will certainly be your best patron with the Court, and I have no doubt that he will receive you with sympathy and interest.
I will also send you, in the course of the week, a letter for the Chamberlain of H.R.H. Princess Charles of Prussia, which Ziegesar has promised me.
As to our concert, fixed for the 19th (Saturday next), I assure you frankly that I should not have ventured to speak to you of it, and that I hardly venture now.
The receipts are to be devoted to some pension fund, always so low in funds in our countries; consequently I am not in a position to propose any suitable terms. Now as, on the occasion of the performance of the "Messiah," you have already been only too kind to us, it really would not do for me to return to the charge, unless you were to authorize me to do so quite directly and positively, by writing me an epistolary masterpiece somewhat as follows:—
"I will sing in a perfunctory manner, but with the best intentions and the best will in the world, the air from…(here follows the name of the piece), and the duet from "Semairamide" with Milde or Mademoiselle Aghte, next Saturday; and in order not to put anybody out, I will arrive at the exact time of the rehearsal, on Friday at four o'clock."
If any such idea as this should come into your head please let me know (by telegram if need be), so that by Monday night, or, at latest, Tuesday midday, I may be able to make the programme, which must appear by Wednesday morning at latest.
With homage and friendship,
F. Liszt