My best regards to your wife.
Yours faithfully and gratefully,
F. Liszt
Rome, December 8th, 1881
I repeat especially my hearty thanks to Zellner.
287. To Pauline Viardot-Garcia
[The great singer, who still teaches in Paris, was Liszt's pupil for piano.]
Most Illustrious and Gracious Friend,
A woman distinguished by her shrewdness and talents, the authoress of several volumes which have had the good fortune to pass through several editions, has asked me for a line of introduction to you. I have told her what she and all the world besides already knows: that Pauline Viardot is the most exquisite dramatic singer of our time, and besides this a consummate musician and a composer of the most delicate and lively intelligence. To which opinion, as merited as it is universal, Madame X. is prepared to give ample and elegant expression in a notice she meditates publishing upon you.
Pray give a kind reception to your new correspondent, and keep a friendly remembrance of your old and most devoted admirer,