With regard to the Tonkunstler-Versammlung, it seems to me that the choice of Leipzig is most advantageous for the purpose at present, and I would advise you to adhere to this. In the course of the winter we will have an "exchange of thoughts" ("un echange d'idees," as Prince Gortschakoff is ever saying) about the programme and arrangements, and this will assuredly lead to more harmonious results than the Russian notes. Fortunately we do not need to quarrel about the extent of the treaties of 1815!
Hearty greetings from your sincerely devoted
F. Liszt
October 10th, 1863
P.S.—About six weeks ago there appeared in the Leipzig "Illustrirte Zeitung" a biographical notice of F. Liszt, together with a portrait. Let me have the number, and tell me who wrote the article.
.—. Has anything new in the way of scores or pianoforte pieces been published that is likely to interest me? Here people speak of Mendelssohn and even Weber as novelties!
23. To Madame Jessie Laussot
Herewith, dear Madame, are a few lines that I beg you to forward to Madame Ritter (mere), as I do not know where to address to her. [She had lost her daughter Emilie, the sister of Carl and Alexander Ritter.]
The melancholy familiarity with death that I have perforce acquired during these latter years does not in the least weaken the grief which we feel when our dear ones leave this earth. If at the sight of the opening graves I thrust back despair and blasphemy, it is that I may weep more freely, and that neither life nor death shall be able to separate me from the communion of love.—
She whom we are mourning was especially dear to me. Her bodily weakness had perfected the intuitive faculties in her. She took her revenge inwardly and lived in the beyond…At our first meeting I thought I should meet her again. It was at Zurich at Wagner's, whose powerful and splendid genius she so deeply felt. During several weeks she always took my arm to go into the salle a manger at the hour of dinner and supper,—and she spread a singular charm of amenity, of sweet and conciliatory affection in that home to which a certain exquisite degree of intimacy was wanting. She possessed in a rare degree the secret of making her presence agreeable and harmonious. Everything in her, even to her very silence, was comprehensive, for she seemed to understand, or rather to determine the thoughts which words render in only an unformed manner, and worked them out in her noble heart.