Dear Chevalier and Friend,
Your last letter interests me much, and I thank you very sincerely for the confidence you show me. Certainly I should ask nothing better than to reply to it as you wish; but there is the difficulty. Shall you reproach me with "claudicare in duas partes"? No, I do not think you will, for I do not intend to have any hitch; it is simply that the small influence which, in certain given circumstances, I could exercise, is paralysed by other circumstances that now predominate. I should be obliged to explain various things to make you understand my extrinsic inaptitude, and consequently my obligatory abstention on some points which touch me closely. I prefer not to enter into these details in writing; perhaps we shall have an opportunity of speaking about them: as to the present time the following is my reply, reduced to the most concise terms:
I entirely approve of your two projects of the competition of sacred Music, and of the definitive, normal and really Catholic edition of the Plain-Song of the Church. These two enterprises are opportune and desirable, and may be carried out to your honor and advantage. All the same I am not in a position to serve you efficaciously utraque. Therefore I ought not to be mixed up with it,…unless any contingency as unforeseen as decisive should supervene.
You will have read in the Correspondance de Rome that the work of M. Sre. Alfieri has remained in suspense. It is not a posthumous obstacle with which your edition would have to contend, but another, which might also be called Legion.
The "Requiem" and the "Offertoire of St. Francis" shall be sent to you in a fortnight. Before sending them to you I want carefully to look through the copy, so as to save the engraver as many corrections as possible.
I shall not leave Rome till Christmas; from January till the end of March I shall be at Weimar.—
Pray accept, dear Chevalier and friend, the assurance of my affectionate devotion.
F. Liszt
September 19th, 1868
When will the 1st volume of your publication of the History of the Popes and Cardinals come out? I shall be much obliged if you will send it me.