BERLIOZ Hector (1803-1869) Lot n° 4

L.A.S. "H. Berlioz", [Paris] 5 May [1849], to his sister Nanci PAL in Grenoble; 3 pages in-8 on bluish paper, addressed (slight wetness). beautiful letter to his sister, evoking the composers of his time. he speaks of his wife's health [Harriet Smithson had suffered a stroke in October that left her partly paralyzed and aphasic, followed by a second stroke in February]: "Henriette has been very well for a few days now (very well relatively speaking) but discouragement has overtaken her when she sees that the movement does not return to her right side. She must always be abused and given hope; it is not easy. She has a garden which at this moment is especially pleasant for her, we carry her in the middle of her lilacs and the good weather revives her a little. As for me, I was doing quite well and here are my stomach aches which take me back ". Then, evoking the death of Mrs. Faure, the mother of his childhood friend Casimir: "The whirlwind in which I live no longer has on me the dizzying power that it would take to put me out of the reach of these sad returns to the past; and I will confess to you that I now look back more often than forward. I see [...] what similarities there are in our ideas and our intimate feelings on many points, although we rarely communicate them to each other. I am experiencing many other shocks of the same nature that are spared to you. I am currently witnessing, in my special sphere, the rapid extinction of a whole generation of artists; some are dying young and worthy, like MENDELSSOHN, others are debased and dazed, like ROSSINI, who still lives a mechanical life. Others, like SPONTINI, see with childish despair their last hour coming, and regret an existence that their memories and ours alone still embellish. Mrs. Spontini has asked me lately with the strongest urging to write the memoirs of her husband. I would like to, but I fear I cannot. Besides there is in this task accomplished under the eyes of this great artist something of testamentary which repulses me and moreover takes away from my admiration for him all its modesty "... He leaves it to get dressed and to go "in spite of the heat in a stifling room where I will have to undergo all kinds of musicailleries". He evokes to finish the illumination (for the anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic), "the most beautiful that one ever saw in Paris. The republic shows itself well, under the report of the colored glasses. I take care of the elections as the Bonzes of Siam or the Mandarins of Canton can do it"... Correspondence, t. III, n° 1262.