Dear Freiherr,
Hearty thanks for your kind letter. To include me in your noble, zealous, high-minded efforts in matters for the glorification of Wagner and according to the wishes of his widow, is to me ever a duty and an honor.
Faithfully yours,
F. Liszt
Rome, December 18th, 1884
355. To Camille Saint-Saens
[End of 1884 or beginning of 1885.]
Very Dear Friend and Companion in Arms,
Your sympathy for the "Salve, Polonia" [Orchestral Interlude from the unfinished Oratorio Stanislaus. It was given at the Tonkunstler-Versammlung in Weimar in 1884, at which Saint-Saens was present.] makes me quite happy. Still writing music, as I am, I sometimes ask myself at such and such a passage, "Would that please St. Saens?" The affirmative encourages me to go on, in spite of the fatigue of age and other wearinesses.
If you do me the honor of playing one of my compositions at the Carlsruhe Festival please choose which it shall be: perhaps the Danse macabre [Dance of Death] with orchestra; or—which I think would be better, for the public would rather hear you alone—the Predication aux oiseaux [St. Francis preaching to the birds, followed by Scherzo and March. [Saint-Saens did not go to Carlsruhe.]