Dear Benevolent One,
To great grief silence is best suited. I will be silent on
Wagner, the prototype of an initiatory genius.
Thank you cordially for your telegram of yesterday. [On the success of Saint-Saens' Opera "Henry VIII." at the opera in Paris] No one rejoices more than I in the success of Saint-Saens. There is no doubt that he deserves it; but fortune, grand sovereign of doubtful manners, is often in no hurry to array herself on the side of merit.
One has to keep on tenaciously pulling her by the ear (as Saint-
Saens has done) to make her listen to reason.
Be so good as to send me the number of the Independance with the article on "Henry VIII." I will ask M. Saissy, the director of the Gazette (French) de Hongrie, professor of French literature at the University of Budapest, to reproduce this article in his Gazette. Saissy is one of my friends; consequently he will publish what is favorable to "Henry VIII."
Saint-Saens has sent me the score of his beautiful work "La Lyre et la Harpe." Alas! everything that is not of the theater and does not belong to the repertoire of the old classical masters Handel, Bach, Palestrina, etc., does not yet gain any attentive and paying consideration—the decisive criterion—of the public. Berlioz, during his lifetime, furnished the proof of this.
Please give my love to your husband, and accept my devoted and grateful affection.
F. Liszt
Budapest, March 6th, 1883
With regard to Lagye, I am contrite. Various things which I had to send off with care have prevented me from going on with the revision of the French edition of my Lieder. It shall be done next month.