which should be called (unless you advise otherwise) Labourers,
Sailors, and Soldiers, would form a lyric epic of which the
genius of Rossini or Meyerbeer would be proud. I know I have no
right to make any such claim, but your kindness to me has always
been so great that I have a faint hope of obtaining this new and
glorious favor. If, however, this work would give you even an
hour's trouble, please consider my request as not having been
made, and pardon me for the regret which I shall feel at this
beautiful idea being unrealized.

As business matters do not necessarily call me to Paris, I prefer
not to return there just now. I expect to go to Bonn in the month
of July, for the inauguration of the Beethoven Monument, and to
have a Cantata performed there which I have written for this
occasion. The text, at any rate, is tolerably new; it is a sort
of Magnificat of human Genius conquered by God in the eternal
revelation through time and space,--a text which might apply
equally well to Goethe or Raphael or Columbus, as to Beethoven.
At the beginning of winter I shall resume my duties at the Court
of Weymar, to which I attach more and more a serious importance.

If you were to be so very good as to write me a few lines, I
should be most happy and grateful. If you would send them either
to my mother's address, Rue Louis le Grand, 20; or to that of my
secretary, Mr. Belloni, Rue Neuve St. George, No. 5, I should
always get them in a very short time.

I have the honor to be, sir, yours very gratefully,

F. Liszt