Dear Mrs Aronson:

Many thanks for your nice letter and for attending to so many bothersome trifles for me. I am glad the Hubbards liked the flowers. William the tall has written to me in a most charming way. I appreciate immensely his truly disinterested friendship. Will you kindly send me the German criticisms of the two recitals. The notice of the Thomas concert in the Staatsgeitung I have and don’t need another copy.

I think it is better not to send Mrs Godowsky a copy of this particular article as it is so rudely and bitterly written, that it would surely anger her!

I enjoyed my stay in Chicago more than anything on this side of the water. I intended to write you soon upon my arrival in Boston, but my friends here have taken possession of my poor self and I was whirled in a maelstrom of entertainments.

The Kneisel concert succeeded splendidly. We played the Dvorak Quintet to our hearts delight. All papers spoke Hubbardly about my share in the work, though it amounted only to twenty percent of the five parts. The only paper that schmidtesized [?] a trifle was the Boston Transcript. I met a distinguished critic the same evening and I am sure he did not drink any water on this particular day, but saw a decimet (double). Thursday we rehearsed the Liszt concerto. Yesterday afternoon I played it. I really had a great popular success with it. To compare the Chicago performance of it to the one in Boston would be an injustice to the latter. Gericke accompanied the work ‘con amore’. I had full freedom to take my tempo and the ensemble was great. The result was that the work sounded like another composition. The acoustic qualities of the new and gorgeous music hall are phenomenal. Encores are not allowed at the symphony concerts. What a sensible rule! The critics do not attend the rehearsals but come to the concerts on Saturday night. What they will say remains to be seen. On the strength of my yesterday’s success I just got a letter by messenger that I an engaged by the Steinert people to give a recital here on the 28th on the afternoon. I am also “booked” for the 26th in the afternoon for Sam Franko’s orchestral concert of ancient composers. As I have nothing in this line prepared I had to examine a number of corpses to find one worthy of resurrection. I found a really beautiful concerto of Mozart in C minor (No. 4, Litolff edition) which I have to memorize now between my Boston Symphony dates. I have to go to New York tomorrow to have a long talk with Steinway. They treat me abominably. Monday afternoon I go to Philadelphia. I play Philadelphia the same evening. The 21st in Brooklyn, 22nd in New York, 26th in the afternoon Franko concert, in the evening Kneisel Quartet, 28th recital in Boston, April 3rd Symphony in Providence. These are all my dates. Charlton came to Boston to have a chat with me. I can see now through the entire scheme he worked. He did Mason & Hamlin business to my detriment. He is now travelling to get some dates for me. I pay his travelling expenses. I try it for two weeks. Should he fail to get engagements I will give up concertizing and come to Chicago to teach and get whatever dates I can near Chicago. Do you think I can get pupils enough for five of six weeks to justify such a step? I would teach up to thirty hours during that time. My season is such a financial failure that I must do all I can to earn as much as possible. You can begin to feel the pulse of those who are likely to avail themselves of my stay there. Tell them there is a possibility of my coming to Chicago for several weeks (Please write me)