“Harold is more successful even than last year, and I think it quite outdoes the Fantastique.
“They have accepted my Cellini for the Opera; Alfred de Vigny[13] and Auguste Barbier have written me a poem full of dainty vivacity and colour. I have not begun to work at the music yet, because I am in the same predicament as my hero, Cellini—short of money. Good reports from Germany, thanks to Liszt’s piano arrangement of my Symphony.
“April 1826.—I still work frightfully hard at journalism. You know I write concert critiques for the Débats, which are signed ‘H.’
“They seem to be making a stir. Parisian artists call them epoch-making.
“In spite of M. Bertin (the editor’s) wish, I refused to review either I Puritani or that wretched Juive. I should have had to find too much fault, and people would have put it down to jealousy.
“Then there is the Rénovateur, wherein I can hardly control my wrath over all these ‘pretty little trifles’; and Picturesque Italy has dragged an article out of me.
“Next, the Gazette Musicale plagues me for a résumé of the week’s inanities every Sunday.
“Added to that I have tried every concert room in Paris, with the idea of giving a concert, and find none suitable except the Conservatoire, which is not available until after the last of the regular concerts on the 3rd May.
“We often talk of you to Barbier; he is a kindred soul whom you would love. No one understands better than he the grandeur and nobility of an artist’s calling.
“Germany still talks of me; Vienna asks for a copy of the score of the Fantastique, but I tell them I cannot possibly let them have it, as I propose to give it on tour myself.