[Autograph in the Liszt Museum at Weimar.—The addressee was widely known as the writer Elpis Melena.]
My winter villeggiatura at the Villa d'Este is drawing to its close; the day after tomorrow I return to Rome, and when you receive these lines I shall be at Weimar. Address to me there till the middle of June.
When will your Cretan volume, crowned [Untranslatable pun on the words "cretois" and "crete.">[ with erudition and philhellenism, be finished? Shall you return this summer for its publication? I hope you will, and I will confess to you without any compliments that you are among the very small number of my friends whose absence I feel to be a privation. Now, to accustom one's self to this kind of privation does not become easier with age.
You doubtless know the novel of your great historical friend, published now by the "Gaulois" (if I am not mistaken) under the title "La Domination du Moine" (or "Clelia.") I question whether another of your friends—less historical although very distinguished—M. St. Rene Taillandier, recently appointed Secretary General to the Minister of Public Instruction, would subscribe to many copies of G.'s novel for the Imperial libraries; but he will have a fine opportunity of ministerial revenge when the biographer of the hero of l'unita italiana (not the "cattolica," relegated to Turin) brings out "la Crete," in which the Cretans will at last be relieved from the anathema of their Epimenides narrated in St. Paul's Epistle to Titus,— "Cretenses semper mendaces, malae bestiae, ventres pigri."—In the matter of "mendaces" and "ventres pagri" there would be a tremendous competition with the rest of Europe.
My plans for the spring and summer remain always the same. Weimar—from the 10th April till the 20th June—with the Tonkunstler-Versammlung (which has the honor of counting you amongst its illustrious members); then in the last week of May I should be very much tempted to be present at the famous "Passion Play" at Ober-Ammergau; at the end of August I shall go to my odd friend August at Szegzard (Hungary), who is anxious that a new Mass of mine should be performed on the day of the dedication of a church (29th September); and in October I shall return to Rome.
I suppose you receive the Allgemeine Zeitung. It gives but too much news, and little edifying, about serious things here by its "Roman Letters," no less widespread than badly put together. If you want to obtain complete information on these difficult questions you must read l' Univers and the letters of Veuillot, or at least l'Unita cattolica; but it would be exacting too much from your impartiality. Moreover you have better things to do than to read; your chief duty is to make yourself read, consequently to write and to write again;—in a secondary manner occupy yourself a little with your beautiful vines, and, above all, don't forget to bring soon some samples of their excellent product, which will enliven our material and intellectual "substantials," at which, hoping to participate again in the year of grace 1870, I am,
Your very affectionate and very devoted servant,
F. Liszt
Villa d'Este, March 15th, 1870
As handy gossip I send you the following: they say that Odo Russet [sic] will shortly go to England for his wife's confinement, and will not return to his post in Rome. It is also said that Schlozer will pay a visit here in the spring;—and that the daughter of Countess Garcia is to marry a nephew of Cardinal Antonelli, and will bring a fortune of ten thousand pounds sterling.