“Laroche is the best—most exact, least ignorant—yet I have to correct ever so many mistakes in my copy.
“Liszt has been here for a week, and we dined together twice.
“As we kept carefully off things musical we had a pleasant time. He has gone back to Rome to play the Music of the Future to the Pope, who asks himself what on earth it all means.”
“10th November 1864.—Can you believe, dear Humbert, that I have a grudge against the past? Why did I not know Virgil.
“I see him dreaming in his Sicilian villa—so hospitable, so gracious.
“And Shakespeare, that mighty Sphinx, impassible as a mirror, reflecting not creating. Yet what ineffable compassion must he not have had for poor, small, human things?
“And Beethoven, rough and scornful, yet blessed with such exquisite tenderness and delicacy that I think I could have forgiven him all his contempt, his rudeness, everything!
“And Gluck, the stately!...
“Last week M. Blanche, the doctor of the Passy lunatic asylum, invited a party of artists and savants to celebrate the anniversary of the performance of The Trojans.
“I was invited and kept entirely in the dark.