I shall arrive in Pest again in the middle of February.
183. To Dr. Eduard Kulke in Vienna
My Dear Sir,
During long years you have constantly shown me so much kindness that I cannot sufficiently thank you for it. I am also ashamed not to compose better works, so as to make the kindly interpretation of them more easy and pleasanter to you. Nevertheless all the more valuable is your insight and indulgence.
The "feathered thief" [A comedy by the addressee, a well-known and meritorious author, and sent by him shortly before to Liszt.] reconciles me with the "newspaper geese." It will, without plagiarism, win its laurels on the stage. The dialogue and action are full of humor and wit…and the final catastrophe of the thrashing must make an impression on the public.—
Excuse me, my dear Sir, if I do not feel myself equal to the task of an Old-Testament Oratorio. [Kulke had sent a poem, "Moses before Pharaoh," to Liszt in Rome, with the question whether he would be inclined to make it the subject of an Oratorio.] Michael Angelo represented his Moses mighty and horned (perhaps as a most excellent ideal forerunner of Pope Julius II.?); Rossini sang exquisitely the "preghiera di Mose," with which Europe is still enraptured; and Marx's Oratorio Moses, less well-known, contains many excellent parts.
"Non omnia possumus omnes." My humble self can do but little, and remains most humbly grateful to the "Caritas Christi."
With especial regards and thanks, yours most truly,
F. Liszt
Villa d'Este, January 23rd, 1876