Arrigo BOÏTO (1842-1918). L.A.S., Milan March 24, 1883, to Gustave Fuchs in Chicago; 4 pages in-8, envelope with red wax stamps. Nice letter thanking for the sending of an inkwell representing Faust, and on his opera Mefistofele. He thanks for this splendid gift, received on his return from Flanders and Spain: "the American inkwell has come to take its place of honour on my work table". When he opened the box, all he saw at first was an "avalanche of flowers on Mephisto's head". When he took out the statuette "all shining with art and silver, [...] it looked as if it had just come out of the last scene of Goethe's Poem", from which Boeo quotes some verses. He thanks for this exquisite piece of art and sends his congratulations to the artist and to the Duhme house in Cincinnati. In exchange, and in the name of their common adoration for Goethe's work, "the most sublime Poem of modern literature", he wishes to offer him "a piece of this palm tree which Goethe visited in Padua and which, as you know, inspired the theory of the metamorphosis of plants. Goethe himself kept a leaf of this palm tree throughout his long life. This tree is still alive, religiously cultivated in my hometown [...] This tree bears Goethe's name and my fellow citizens gave me three branches of it", of which he cut off the small piece that he will send it in a case.... "If my vanity does not blind me, if in my music, as I hope, one finds an echo, albeit a weakened one, of the immense harmony of Goethe's Poem, keep this piece of branch in memory of a man who honours, like you, in art, the gift of the Gods"...