MY DEAR MASON: Although I do not know at what stage of your brilliant artistic peregrinations these lines will reach you, I feel assured that you are not ignorant that I am very, very sincerely and affectionately obliged to you for keeping me in kind remembrance, a fact to which the musical journals which you have sent me bear good witness. The "Musical Gazette" of New York has in particular given me genuine satisfaction, not alone on account of the agreeable and flattering things concerning me personally which it contains, but furthermore because this journal seems to me to inculcate an excellent and superior direction of opinion in your country. As you know, my dear Mason, I have no other self-interest than to serve the good cause of art so far as is possible, and wherever I find men who are making conscientious efforts in the same direction, I rejoice and am strengthened by the good example which they give me. Be so good as to present to your brother, the head editor of the "Musical Review", as I suppose, my very sincere thanks and compliments. If he would like to receive some communication from Weimar upon matters of interest which occur in the musical world of Germany, I will willingly have them sent to him through the medium of Mr. Pohl, who, by the way, does not live any longer at Dresden, where the numbers of the "Musical Gazette" were addressed by mistake, but at Weimar in the Kaufstrasse. His wife, one of the best harpists that I know, stands among the virtuosos of our "Chapelle", and is an important factor in the representation of the opera, as also in concerts. Apropos of concerts, in a few days I will send you the program of a series of symphonic performances, which ought to have been established here several years ago, and to which I consider it an honor and a duty to give definite encouragement from the year 1855. I expect Berlioz toward the end of January. We shall then hear his trilogy "L'Enfance du Christ", of which you already know "La Fuite en Egypte". To this he has added two other short oratorios, "Le Songe d'Herode" and "L'Arrivee a Sais". The dramatic symphony "Faust" (in four parts, with solos and choruses) will also be given in full during his stay here. In regard to visits from artists who have been personally agreeable to me during the last month, I would name Clara Schumann and Litolff. In Brendel's journal, "Neue Zeitschrift", you will find an article signed with my name, on Mme. Schumann, whom I have again heard with that sympathy and absolute admiration which her talent compels.