Sic vos non vobis—
Innumerable interruptions prevent my beginning the Beethoven Cantata today. But I have at last secured quiet: I shall remain all the winter at the Villa d'Este (3 or 4 hours out of Rome), and take care that I do not lose an immoderate amount of time.
With sincerest thanks and in all friendliness yours,
Villa d'Este, November 17th, 1869
F. Liszt
95. To the Princess Caroline Sayn-Wittgenstein
[According to the Weimarer Zeitung it was printed as follows, fragmentarily, in the Leipziger Tageblatt of December 6th, 1888.]
November 27th, 1869.
.—. The death of Overbeck reminds me of my own. I wish, and urgently entreat and command, that my burial may take place without show, and be as simple and economical as possible. I protest against a burial such as Rossini's was, and even against any sort of invitation for friends and acquaintances to assemble as was done at Overbeck's interment. Let there be no pomp, no music, no procession in my honor, no superfluous illuminations, or any kind of oration. Let my body be buried, not in a church, but in some cemetery, and let it not be removed from that grave to any other. I will not have any other place for my body than the cemetery in use in the place where I die, nor any other religious ceremony than a quiet Mass in the Parish Church (not any kind of Requiem to be sung). The inscription on my tomb might be: "Et habitabunt recti cum vultu suo.".—.
96. To Franz Servais