A happy Christmas, and a brave New Year '83.
Ever your faithfully attached
F. Liszt
Venezia, Palazzo Vendramin, December 9th, 1882
318. To Arthur Meyer in Paris, Presidet of the "Presse Parisienne"
[Copied in the Gazette de Hongrie at Budapest, February 1st, 1883]
Monsieur le Directeur,
My telegram of this morning expressed to you my excuses and deep regret at being unable to be of use in the programme of your Festival. [Liszt had been asked to take part in a Festival which was given at the Grand Opera for the benefit of the sufferers from the inundations in Alsace-Lorraine. "The Dame of Liszt in France," they wrote, "is synonymous with triumph, and we know that it is also synonymous with kindness.">[
It would certainly be an honor to me to take part in it, and I am by no means oblivious of the gratitude I owe to Paris, where my youthful years were passed. Moreover it would be, it seems to me, a becoming thing that, after the generous and striking sympathy shown by Paris—also by a festival at the Grand Opera—to my compatriots on the occasion of the inundation of Szeged, an artist from Hungary, who has been favored by so much French kindness, should make his public acknowledgments at your approaching grand performance.
Unfortunately my age of 72 years invalidates me as a pianist. I could no longer risk in public my ten fingers—which have been out of practice for years—without incurring just censure. There is no doubt on this point; and I am perfectly resolved to abstain from any exhibition of my old age at the piano in any country.