With cordial and most friendly greetings,
Yours sincerely,
November 8th [1862]
F. Liszt
P.S.—Best thanks for your Sondershausen essays.
10. To A. W. Gottschalg
Dear Friend,
Your kind letter reached me on October 22nd, and this day, which could not pass without sorrow, has this year been brightened by many loving and solemn remembrances. Accept my thanks, and present my best remembrances to all those whose names you mention, and who have so kindly thought of me. Unfortunately there is no prospect of my soon being able to celebrate the 22nd October with Weimar friends; but I may tell you that I intend paying H.R.H. the Grand Duke a visit during the course of the summer. And we two shall then also have a bright and happy day in Tieffurt—and look through a couple of new Organ pieces together. Grosse must not fail to be there likewise, nor his trombone box, which I have specially had in my mind ever since the journey to Paris. [Grosse took his instrument with him on the journey, in order that it might be at hand in case Liszt should want it.] Meanwhile, however, tell dear, good Grosse not to be vexed about the delay in connection with the promised despatch of his "Sonntags-Posaunenstuck." [Sunday piece for trombone.] It is long since finished, also some three or four Organ pieces, which, dear friend, I wrote for you last spring. But the postal arrangements are so little safe, under present circumstances, that I do not care to send manuscripts by this means. In despatching parcels to Vienna or Paris I could, of course, make use of the courtesy of the embassies; but it is more difficult with Weimar…and so the parcel with the "Legend of Saint Elizabeth," the three Psalms instrumented (and essentially remodelled), several Pianoforte and Organ pieces, together with Grosse's "Sunday-piece," must remain in my box till some perfectly reliable opportunity presents itself. If the worst comes to the worst I shall bring the whole lot myself.
The Schneider-Organ-Album, and the one to appear later—the Arnstadter-Bach-Organ-Album (which is to contain the magnificent fugal subject from Bach's Cantata that I arranged for the Organ— and not without difficulty), I beg you to keep in your library till my return.
I am very unpleasantly affected by the hyper-mercantile craftiness of one of my publishers whom you mention in your letter. It would truly be unjust if you were not to receive the usual discount, and indeed an exceptional amount, when purchasing the "Faust Symphony." But who would ever succeed in washing a negro white? And, in addition, one has generally to put up with the inky blackness of his bills!—I could tell many a tale of such doings, and indeed of persons who are afterwards not ashamed to talk braggingly of their friendship for me! "O friends, not these tones, rather let us strike up pleasanter ones," sings Beethoven.