As for Litolff, I confess that he has made a very vivid impression on me. His fourth concerto symphony (manuscript) is a very remarkable composition, and he played it in so masterly a manner, with such verve, with such boldness and certainty, that I derived intense pleasure from it. If there was a little of the quadruped in the amazing execution of Dreyschock (and this comparison should not vex him; is not the lion classed among quadrupeds as well as the poodle?), in that of Litolff, there is certainly something _winged_; moreover, he has all the superiority over Dreyschock that a biped having ideas, imagination, and sensibility has over another biped which imagines itself possessed of all this wealth--often very embarrassing! Do you continue your familiar intercourse with the Old Cognac in the New World, my dear Mason? Let me again commend _measure_ to you, an essential quality for musicians. In truth, I am not too well qualified to extol the _quantity_ of this _quality_, for, if I remember rightly, I have often employed tempo rubato when I was giving my concerts (work which I would not begin again for anything in the world), and even quite recently I have written a long symphony in three parts, called "Faust" (without text or vocal parts), in which the _horrible_ measures 7/8, 7/4, 5/4 alternate with common time and 3/4. By virtue of which I conclude that you should be satisfied with 7/8 of a little bottle of old cognac in the evening, and never exceed five quarts! Raff, in his first volume of "Wagner Frage", has thoroughly realized something like _five quarts_ of doctrinal sufficiency, but that is an unadvisable example to copy in a critical matter, and above all in the matter of cognac and other spirits! My dear Mason, excuse these bad jokes, justified only by my good intentions; that you may bear yourself valiantly, physically and morally, is the most cordial wish of Your very friendly affectionate F. LISZT. WEIMAR, December 14, 1854. You did not know Rubinstein in Weimar?[2] He spent some time here, and was conspicuously different from the opaque mass of self-styled _composer-pianists_ who do not even know what it is to play the piano, still less with what fuel it is necessary to heat one's self in order to compose, so that with what they lack in talent for composition they fancy themselves pianists, and vice versa. Rubinstein will publish forthwith about fifty compositions--concertos, trios, symphonies, songs, light pieces, etc., which deserve notice. Laub has left Weimar. Ed. Singer takes his place in our orchestra. The latter gives much pleasure here, and is pleased himself also.