CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MUSIC 
 
ML 410.L77w84"'ll87>' "-"""^ 
 
 3 1924 022 173 128 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022173128 
 
FEANCOIS LISZT 
 
PRINTED ET 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW^STEEET SQUAKE 
 
 LONDON 
 
FEANCOIS LISZT 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A COMPATBIOT 
 
 TEANSLATED PEOM THE FBENCH OP 
 
 JANKA WOHL 
 
 BY 
 
 B. PEYTON WAED 
 
 |fottl»on 
 
 WAED & DOWNEY 
 
 12 YOEK STBEET, COVENT GAEDEN 
 
 1887 
 
 [All rights reaervedZ 
 
FEANCOIS LISZT: 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A FELLOW-COUNTRYWOMAN. 
 
 'One ought not to weep for the dead, but 
 rejoice with the living,' said Liszt, when, in 
 my presence, he heard of the unexpected 
 death of a friend. The lesson will be of use 
 to me ; I will no longer mourn the wonderful 
 man who has just been taken from us. He 
 will ever remain hving to me. He filled my 
 intellectual hfe with inexhaustible treasures. 
 He opened to me a boundless horizon ; he 
 bequeathed to me a moral legacy, which 
 henceforth secures a future to my soul and 
 
 B 
 
2 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 my heart. He is dead ; but I have not lost 
 him — to such an extent is my existence im- 
 pregnated with his affection, and merged in 
 his genius. His image shall keep me company' 
 now that his body is gone. As in the past, I 
 win seek guidance from that vast spirit to 
 whom work was the first title to' nobility; 
 from that tender and generous heart ; from 
 that proud and grand soul, in which every 
 persecuted truth, every unknown genius, 
 found a champion capable of making it 
 triumph. He will ever be one of the Penates 
 of my hearth ; always present, and always 
 surrounded by my grateful affection. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 We are old friends. I was ten years old 
 when I saw Liszt for the first time at one 
 of his orchestral concerts. He had been the 
 Sindbad, the hero of my childish dreams, and 
 my one ambition, my one desire, had been 
 to gain his intimacy. 
 
 I succeeded. He praised my playing (they 
 wished me to become a pianist) ; he sat down 
 at the piano and gave me the treat of playing 
 for me all my little repertoire, viz. S. Bach's 
 ' Fugue,' Chopin's ' Berceuse,' a sonata of 
 Scarlatti's. Then he gave me a lot of bon- 
 bons, and kissed my thick brown plaits of 
 hair ; they were my mother's pride, and I 
 
 s 2 
 
4 PRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 wore them hanging down my back in the 
 Hungarian fashion. I was very httle, and my 
 hair was very long ; Liszt noticed this. He 
 had fairly turned my head. A girl friend has 
 just sent me a letter written about this time. 
 I was surprised to find in these infantile 
 effusions one more proof of the ascendency 
 exercised ovei* everybody by the extraordinary 
 personality of this man. He used to, himself, 
 conduct his mass ' de Gran,' solemnised at 
 the parish church of Buda-Pesth. I was in 
 the choir facing him, and the play of his 
 wonderful features so struck my childish 
 soul, that it inspired me with the following 
 lines : — 
 
 'I cannot keep my eyes off his sublime 
 face. There is nothing more interesting than 
 to see Liszt conducting. His features always 
 reflect the nature of the music he hears. 
 Enthusiasm, beatitude, spiritual fervour, all 
 can be read in his eyes. I could always tell 
 
KECOLLBCTIOJfS 5 
 
 beforehand what would be the dominant idea 
 in any passage just begun ; Liszt's features 
 told me.' 
 
 Full of enthusiasm, I praised God in 
 French and German verses, which were after- 
 wards reproduced in Hungarian in our news- 
 papers. To thank me he told us he would 
 come and visit us. 
 
 He came, a tall and elegant figure, up our 
 two stories, four steps at a time, his beautiful 
 iron-grey hair streaming over his shoulders, 
 and wrapped in a large cloak, which, with a 
 turn of the wrist, he could throw over his 
 body as cleverly as any Koman did his toga. 
 
 When he kissed my hand as he would ' a 
 grown up young lady's,' my little heart was 
 ready to burst with emotion. 
 
 ' Well ! what a pretty head ! ' he kept on 
 saying as he stroked my brown tresses. 
 
 Then he told me how his father had had 
 ' a fixed idea to see him become somebody ' ; 
 
6 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 how you must be serious and industrious to 
 achieve that, and how you must take pains 
 to do things well; and when my mother 
 complained that while I was playing my scales 
 I composed verses, he shook his head in an 
 anxious manner. ' I am afraid,' said he, 
 ' that, in that way, both scales and verses 
 run the risk of being indifferent.' And I, 
 I am afraid that the remark may have been 
 a prophetic one of the master's. 
 
 Liszt had the memory of kings. Ko — he 
 had what is better — he had the memory of 
 the heart. He never forgot me after that 
 visit. I, child though I was, was capable of 
 awakening in him a lasting interest. At 
 intervals he gave me proof of this by sending 
 me little presents through fellow-country- 
 women whom he came across abroad. Such 
 as the collection of his Hungarian Ehapsodies, 
 a book, a photograph — in short, something 
 showing ' a constant affection, a faithful and 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 7 
 
 grateful friendsMp,' as he wrote in a little 
 note-case wliich, thinking of me at the last 
 minute, he entrusted to one of our most 
 distinguished musicians, to be given to me, 
 when he was seeing him off at the station at 
 Weimar. It was not an empty compliment, 
 liszt was profoundly grateful for any sincere 
 sentiment, and this pecuharity of his character 
 explains to us the fanatical attachments which 
 he inspired, and which followed him to the 
 grave. 
 
 Some years after, Liszt came back to 
 Buda-Pesth. He spent an evening with us. 
 I was iU, but they got me up at ten o'clock to 
 see the master. I had improved ; I played 
 him one of his own compositions, ' The Night- 
 ingale,' but, unnerved by my illness, as well 
 as by my emotion, my strength deserted me ; 
 I broke down, and, putting my arms on the 
 music-stand, I burst into tears. You should 
 have seen the delightful man do everything 
 
8 FEANfOIS LISZT 
 
 ' to coax the child to smile.' I was even then 
 able to understand the divine and captivating 
 music I heard that blessed evening. ' Even- 
 ings in Vienna,' Chopin's ' "Waltzes and Ma- 
 zurkas,' musical trifles — I had them all. It 
 was fairyland to me, and my old music- 
 master, a friend of Liszt's, declared he had 
 never heard him play with so much spirit. 
 His little audience was in the seventh 
 heaven. I was delirious that night, and the 
 archangel Liszt beamed on me incessantly, 
 and mingled with algebraical problems which 
 my over-wrought brain tried in vain to solve. 
 
 I still remember a comic little incident 
 which worried my poor mother dreadfully. 
 She was one of the cleverest women of her 
 day ; but she was also a cook of no mean 
 order, and very proud of her skill in the 
 culinary art. 
 
 Liszt had promised to sup with us at eight 
 o'clock. He did not turn up until eleven. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 9 
 
 Our Hungarian supper naturally suffered in 
 consequence ; and, mother could never forget 
 the sly smile with which our illustrious guest 
 said, ' Madam, you really have excellent 
 cigars.' During this same visit of Liszt's I 
 once more heard him play, without his know- 
 ing it, hidden in a little cupboard with my 
 mother. My music-master, Mr. Breuer, had 
 invited him to a man party. All the musical 
 Bohemians of the town were there, as well 
 as all the swells. Liszt, in his shirt-sleeves, 
 played Beethoven's Grand Sonata Op. 47, 
 dedicated to Kreutzer, with one of our vir- 
 tuosos, a violinist whose name I have for- 
 gotten. Then, with one of his pupils, Mr. 
 Winterberger, who travelled with him, they 
 performed on two pianos his grand symphony 
 ' Tasso.' He was so dehghted with his pupil 
 that he embraced him with effusion. Child 
 though I was, the extraordinary likeness 
 between pupil and master struck me — the 
 
10 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 same head, the same flowing locks, the same 
 prominent nose, and the same easy manners. 
 I mentioned this to my mother, but she made 
 no reply. 
 
 I have often heard ' Tasso ' played by the 
 master since. I even played it myself with 
 him only last year ; but it was not the same 
 thing. I learnt, alas ! that even the gods can 
 grow old ! 
 
 The individuality of Liszt was certainly 
 most complicated, made up as it was, to a 
 degree rarely found, of lights and shades. 
 His nature consisted of uneven proportions 
 of demon and angel. Uneven, because the 
 angelic part of him always got the better of 
 the diaboHcal. To attempt to give an epitome 
 of Liszt would be to try and get a reflection 
 of the universe in a drop of water. I dare 
 not attempt anything so impossible. 
 
 This work has no pretension to add to the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 11 
 
 more or less surpassing and voluminous 
 studies written on Liszt, on his works, and 
 the part he has played in the history of the 
 development of music, and of the artistic life 
 of the century. That is not my mission. I 
 shall even try to be as temperate as is possi- 
 ble in the portrayal of my own impressions, 
 which, in any case, are only of moderate 
 interest compared with the greatness of the 
 subject. Much has already been written 
 about this great artist, without however tell- 
 ing us 'What Liszt himself thought, what 
 Liszt himseK said.' Therefore, it is Liszt, and 
 only Liszt, who will appear in these pages, 
 just as real, just as living, as I see him now 
 before my eyes. It was my privilege to sur- 
 prise the secret of the perfume of the flower, 
 to seize the subtle emanation of the soul, 
 which is missed by the world ; and I wish, 
 by saving from oblivion those impulses of the^ 
 heart, more rare than the impulses of genius. 
 
12 FEANgOlS LISZT 
 
 to preserve the sublime essence which brings 
 before our eyes the affinity of human beings 
 to the Creator. By searching my memoirs, I 
 will try to teach you to know this phenomenal 
 man as I knew him myself. I will give you 
 accurately his own words, and endeavour to 
 depict, as in a photograph, those spontaneous 
 and transitory impulses which, though appa- 
 rently insignificant, help to bring into bold 
 relief all complex and strong characters. 
 
 Unfortunately, I must make a scrupulous 
 suppression (a large portion of my treasure 
 must for the present be kept from the public) — 
 I must leave out for a time nearly everything 
 which refers to the most interesting period of 
 the life of the master, viz. the fourteen years, 
 from 1847 to 1861, which he spent at Wei- 
 mar. This epoch is one of the richest in his 
 life, and these years should count double in 
 his existence, as well as in the annals of art. 
 
 Under his banner, Weimar became the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 1 
 
 Q 
 
 Mecca, towards which all turned who be- 
 longed to the grand creed of Art, whether 
 adept or neophyte. 
 
 The presence of a superior woman, 
 haughty, it is true, but who, to quote the 
 master, 'knew how to be gracious — if she 
 wished,' gave additional lustre to the grand 
 life they led at the residence of Liszt at 
 Altenburg. 
 
 The Duke of "Weimar, as well as his family, 
 had the greatest respect for Liszt. From the 
 very day of the master's debut at Weimar, a 
 close friendship sprang up between them. 
 The Duke congratulated himself on having 
 been able to fix this comet, whose glory 
 henceforth would shed lustre on his court, 
 and which would revive the brilliant era 
 when Goethe had made of Weimar, the 
 Olympus of Germany. The death of the 
 master has not killed this lively friendship. 
 And the Duke has given proof of it by the 
 
14 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 grand 'Liszt Institution,' to continue the 
 system of teaching of his great friend, which 
 he is taking steps to inaugurate. Only last 
 winter — it was on the 12th of February — 
 Liszt passed the evening with us, and speak- 
 ing of Weimar, he said : ' There is one thing 
 I am proud of, and that is the remark of my 
 old Duke — " I have known Liszt very nearly 
 forty years, but I can truly say that during 
 the whole of that time he never gave rae 
 either bad or interested advice." ' 
 
 Such proofs of esteem were always very 
 touching to the master, for he placed honesty 
 above every other quality. And if a long life 
 had made him indulgent when judging others, 
 this indulgence was only skin deep as soon as 
 it came to a question of character. 
 
 Still, as in all complicated individualities, 
 the defects of his good qualities were pre- 
 eminently conspicuous. If proofs of esteem 
 were particularly agreeable to him, he was 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 15 
 
 for all that not in the least blase in the 
 matter of flattery. Quite the contrary, and 
 I was, at times, surprised at the pleasure 
 with which he accepted the most common- 
 place compliments and the most exaggerated 
 praises. I have just said he was not blase 
 to flattery, and I may add that he was not 
 Uase about anything, and still dehghted with 
 quite a childish freshness in the pleasures of 
 this best. of worlds. And it is all the more 
 odd, because no man has ever had adulation 
 poured upon him in such a ceaseless stream. 
 Literally speaking, his path has been one of 
 roses all his life. 
 
 During a concert tour, while travelling, 
 he often found at a station, where the train 
 stopped for a quarter of an hour, a dozen 
 young women dressed in white and carrying 
 bouquets, waiting to lead him, whilst they 
 strewed his path with flowers, to an open and 
 flower-bedecked piano which they had got 
 
16 PRANgOlS LISZT 
 
 ready for him in the hope of hearing him 
 play something. . . . 
 
 A certain Polish countess used regularly 
 to receive him in a boudoir ankle deep in 
 rose leaves, wishing in that way to symbolise 
 her affection for him — an affection without a 
 thorn, and full of humility. On his feast-day 
 and on his birthday, the offerings of flowers 
 accumulated to such an extent that several 
 rooms had to be used to find place for them. 
 I saw this more than once in Eome and at 
 Buda-Pesth. About forty years ago, four 
 celebrated beauties of the Court of the King of 
 Prussia had their portraits painted as Carya- 
 tides supporting the bust of Liszt, who had 
 then reached the zenith of his art and his 
 renown. When they illuminated Berlin in 
 his honour, the king and queen went out in 
 an open carriage to be present at the ovations 
 heaped on this favourite of the gods. . . . 
 
 Thirty years later, the ladies of the Hun- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 17 
 
 garian aristocracy, together with his lady 
 friends, decorated his apartments in Buda- 
 Pesth with masterpieces made by their own 
 fair hands, and smothered them in magnifi- 
 cent embroideries. Events of this sort, only 
 a few of which I have spoken of haphazard, 
 had made of Liszt, even when ahve, an heroic 
 person. His name was as well known in 
 cottage as in castle, and acted on the popu- 
 lace hke an electric spark. Both rich and 
 poor felt the charm of that absorbing mag- 
 netism which seems to flow from the elect 
 of this world. 
 
 I have often seen Liszt applauded by 
 a perfectly fanatical audience, who covered 
 him with flowers and laurels. But that was 
 nothing when compared with the ovation, 
 unique in the annals of the fetishism of Art, 
 which he received in 1867 at Buda-Pesth at 
 the coronation of our reigning sovereign. I 
 was present at it when quite a little girl. It 
 
 c 
 
18 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 was after the terrible years of stagnation 
 which followed the revolution of 1848 — a 
 stagnation steeped in the blood of our martyr- 
 patriots. Dekk, of blessed memory, had 
 begun to unravel the tangled skein of our 
 pohtics, and was filling up the abyss which 
 mugt ever remain when a sovereign forces 
 the allegiance of his people. At this time the 
 feuds had been quelled by this peaceful and 
 far-seeing man, and the coronation of the 
 monarch was meant to ratify the new treaty 
 of mutual loyalty. 
 
 Liszt was desired to compose the coro- 
 nation service. This work continued his 
 triumphal progress in the new era of Church 
 music, and the mass ' de Gran ' is its founda- 
 tion-stone. It has been happUy said of the 
 masses of Liszt : ' They are prayers rather 
 than compositions ' — that is to say, they have 
 the eflfect of supreme invocations, and not 
 of laboured compositions worked up on the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 19 
 
 recognised lines. The ' Benedictus ' of the 
 coronation service has a beauty so sweet and 
 so immaterial that it makes one think of 
 the angels of Botticelh. The airs se^m to 
 embrace each other, and float in space, then 
 dissolve like the blue smoke of incense and 
 lose themselves in the infinite. . . . 
 
 The master came on purpose to conduct 
 the execution of his great work himself. To 
 understand the never-to-be-forgotten scene 
 which followed, you ought to imagine the 
 surroundings. You must have before your 
 eyes the majestic river — the blue waters 
 of the Danube ; the suspension bridge, that 
 striking link which joins Biidato Pesth. You 
 must picture the fortress of Buda and the 
 royal palace with its girdle of gardens ; you 
 must see the smiling and picturesque land- 
 scape stretching along the right bank facing 
 the long row of palaces on the other side of 
 the river. And, above all, you must see them 
 
 2 
 
20 FBANfOIS LISZT 
 
 wreathed in flowers, dressed in their best, and 
 bathed in the spring sunshine. 
 
 Here an immense crowd of eager sight- 
 seers was waiting — on stands, in windows, on 
 the roofs, and in flag-bedecked boats — to 
 see the royal procession which was soon to 
 cross the bridge. The Emperor of Austria, 
 after being crowned King of Hungary at the 
 church of St. Matthias, was to go and take 
 the traditional oath on a hillock, formed of 
 a heap of earth collected from all the dif- 
 ferent states of Hungary, which had been 
 built up opposite the bridge on the left bank 
 of the river. 
 
 "When the feverish suspense grew intense, 
 the tall figure of a priest, in a long black cassock 
 studded with decorations, was seen to descend 
 the broad white road leading to the Danube, 
 which had been kept clear for the royal pro- 
 cession. As he walked bareheaded, his snow- 
 white hair floated on the breeze, and his 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 21 
 
 features seemed cast in brass. At his appear- 
 ance a murmur arose, which swelled and 
 deepened as he advanced and was recognised 
 by the people. The name of Liszt flew down 
 the serried ranks from mouth to mouth, swift 
 as a flash of lightning. Soon a hundred 
 thousand men and women were frantically 
 applauding him, wild with the excitement of 
 this whirlwind of voices. The crowd on the 
 other side of the river naturally thought it 
 must be the king, who was being hailed with 
 the spontaneous acclamations of a reconciled 
 people. It was not the king, but it was a 
 king, to whom were addressed the sympathies 
 of a grateful nation proud of the possession of 
 such a son. ... 
 
 Three years later, in 1870, Liszt began his 
 annual visits to Buda-Pesth. His intimate 
 friend Augusz conveyed, through a second 
 person, to Count Andrassy, then Prime Minis- 
 ter, that the master would be glad to give a 
 
22 FRAIfgOIS LISZT 
 
 portion of his time to his country, if he could 
 get some appointment which would admit of 
 his coming regularly to Hungary to propagate 
 his art. His advocate was clever enough to 
 get him the appointment before the institu- 
 tion of which he was made an official actually 
 existed. And it was in this way that our 
 present Academy of Music was founded, of 
 which Liszt afterwards became the presi- 
 dent. 
 
 His arrival was always an event in Buda- 
 Pesth. He made a stir in the more or less 
 apathetic monotony which is a characteristic of 
 our capital. It was hoped that his presence 
 would be sufficient to create an artistic life 
 in Hungary, would help to put literary and 
 musical interests on an equal and higher 
 footing, and would attract foreign artists, who 
 might be expected by their talent to embel- 
 lish our intellectual Hfe. Alas! it was but 
 a dream ! The first years of his stay among 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 23 
 
 IIS seemed indeed to give hopes that this 
 might come about ; but, httle by httle, indif- 
 ference got the upper hand. He, however, 
 gave us of his best : he freely gave his talent, 
 his heart, and his inexhaustible kiadliness. He 
 lent himself to anything, he never spared 
 himself, he played no less than fourteen 
 times in pubhc in the space of nine years,^ 
 and he left us recollections which can never 
 be forgotten. 
 
 What a delight it was to see him go on 
 the platform, and sit at a piano covered with 
 flowers, and then evoke the soul of Beetho- 
 ven by playing his incomparable concertos ! 
 Drawn by such heavenly song, could his soul 
 help returning to earth to hear, in raptures, 
 the expressions of his immortal essence, in 
 which a thousand new beauties must have 
 been revealed to him by the creative genius 
 of his interpreter ? On other occasions, Liszt, 
 
 ^ This does not seem so very often. — B. P. W. 
 
24 FEAK90IS LISZT 
 
 at the entreaty of his admirers, conducted 
 himself one of his grand orchestral composi- 
 tions, as he did when the entire nation cele- 
 brated in 1873 his Jubilee, the fiftieth year 
 of his artistic career. They played his mag- 
 nificent oratorio ' Christ,' which he called his 
 'musical will and testament,' the words of 
 which, drawn from the Bible and from the 
 Catholic Liturgy, were also composed by the 
 master. Flowers, artistic offerings, and dis- 
 tinctions of all kinds rained on him. Count 
 Andrassy and the Diplomatic Corps came 
 from Vienna on purpose to congratulate the 
 master. It was a frenzy, a universal joy, 
 which brought to the recollection of the grey 
 beards the glorious days of 1839, and the 
 burning enthusiasm whose flames made the 
 world tremble in 1848. And then, later on, 
 when Liszt and "Wagner, the two veterans 
 of art, were applauded to the echo by a 
 brilhant audience, and overcome by emotion 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 25 
 
 embraced each other. . . . Again, when the 
 master, in the presence of the whole court, 
 played the sonata of Beethoven which is 
 called the ' Moonhght Sonata,' and when the 
 assembled multitude, fascinated and delighted, 
 remained fixed as in a trance of ecstasy — . 
 what rapture it was ! 
 
 But how can I hope to tell you of all 
 those times, which can never be forgotten, 
 during which the soul tasted of the purest 
 and most intense of pleasures — pleasures which 
 music alone can give. 
 
 At this time we saw a great deal of Liszt 
 at our own house and in society, but not in 
 such an intimate way as in later years. You 
 see, he was accustomed to absolute worship, 
 and was always surrounded by growing or 
 waning passions, and we, my younger sister 
 and I, were in the first place absorbed in a 
 mother we were devoted to, and who was 
 a great invalid ; then there were the calls 
 
26 FKAKgOIS LISZT 
 
 of society, of our literary career, and the 
 struggles which literature ever has in store 
 for her votaries. The enthusiasm which I 
 felt for Liszt in my childhood had changed 
 with time into a deeper admiration, founded 
 as it was on a riper esteem, and an affection 
 which nothing could shake. But life swept 
 me along on its tumultuous billows, and the 
 appearance of the master from year to year 
 was to me like a flower which bloomed in 
 my path in its season. I was too young for 
 him to treat me as a friend. It was his 
 pride to respect the illusions of youth and 
 the innocence of young thoughts, a proof of 
 which is shown in the following anecdote. 
 
 One day, when the master was evidently 
 in a good humour, I took it into my head to 
 make a diplomatic little speech to him. 
 
 ' You know, my dear master, with what 
 ease I write about, things I have seen or 
 heard ; but you have no idea how difficult I 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 27 
 
 find it to invent. Now you can do me a real 
 service. Just turn over the leaves of the 
 book of your life, and pick out a few of the 
 thousands of more or less romantic episodes 
 in it which have helped to gladden or sadden 
 it. Wm you ? ' 
 
 He leant back in his chair, and gave me 
 an indescribable look, half sly and half seri- 
 ous : ' And so you think that my life is one 
 out of which romances are woven,' said he, 
 after a moment's sUence. 
 
 I have often teased him since about this 
 evasive answer, which was certainly worth 
 its weight in gold, and he always laughed 
 gaily at it. For all that, he did not forget 
 what I had said, and, ten years afterwards, 
 he readily took advantage of times when we 
 were just a famUy party, and granted my 
 request without appearing to have remem- 
 bered it. 
 
 In this way, he little by little began to 
 
28 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 talk openly. As he knew what use I meant 
 to make of what he told me, he nearly always 
 spoke as if he had my object in view. 
 
 Therefore, it is now my sacred duty to do 
 my best to rectify, in many respects, certain 
 errors which have been circulated by the 
 newspapers and by the biographies of Liszt. 
 Three years ago M. Trifonof published in 
 the ' International Eeview ' some biographical 
 sketches on Francois Liszt, and the master, 
 who in his latter years often spoke of his 
 own death, brought us his ' Sketches ' scrib- 
 bled all over with corrections. On the first 
 page we found : — 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 29 
 
 and he made me promise to use them when 
 the proper time came. But I am not now 
 going to give you his ' necrology,' written ere 
 this by a thousand pens. I shall, to a certain 
 extent, use these notes in order to give to 
 my ' EecoUections ' the rare merit of being 
 authentic. 
 
30 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Liszt used to attract all who thirsted for 
 knowledge, just as flowers draw the bees. 
 Pupils came from all parts of the world to 
 drink at the heavenly spring, which was ever 
 ready to quench the thirst of even those 
 whose talent was not of an order to warrant 
 such eagerness. From the very first year 
 during which the master spent some of the 
 winter months in Buda-Pesth, as President of 
 the Academy of Music, he was followed by a 
 swarm of young people whose chief object 
 appeared to be to worship and adore him in a 
 manner which would have seemed immoderate, 
 had he not been in every respect fuUy worthy 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 31 
 
 of it. Then we Pesth folks were treated to 
 a novelty. We saw the master raised on a 
 throne in the midst of pupUs of both sexes, 
 all vying with each other to get into his 
 good graces. They studded his days with 
 evanescent flowers by filling his hfe with the 
 outhnes of httle romances. 
 
 His was a strong character. He himself 
 had never felt the rough edges in the tor- 
 tuous road which leads to glory. But for 
 that very reason he was the more indulgent 
 to those who strove to rise ; and whenever he 
 had an opportunity he helped as much as 
 he could. His esteem for work was so great 
 that he sympathised with all serious aspi- 
 rations ; and even if these aspirations were 
 little supported by talent, they ever received 
 from him his help and his encouragement. 
 He treated all these nobodies who swarmed 
 round him in a fatherly and irresistibly 
 wheedling manner. Jupiter condescended to 
 
32 PKANpOIS LISZT 
 
 patronise the young people, and his good 
 nature was so inexhaustible that it allowed 
 him to come down to the level of these more 
 or less empty-headed muses. I have seen 
 charming young girls prostrating themselves 
 before him and crying bitterly at his annual 
 departure, and even sobbing aloud if he but 
 frowned at them. It stands to reason that 
 such idolatry as this sometimes led to ex- 
 hibitions of weakness. However, he was so 
 accustomed to them that he no longer took 
 any notice of them. 
 
 Still, I must remember my mission to re- 
 fute, as categorically as circumstances will at 
 present allow, certain misstatements. I shall 
 now have to give a sketch of one of these 
 passing adventures — not that the story is in 
 itself interesting, but because the concluding 
 chapters were rather unpleasant for the 
 master. Also, because it was taken up in 
 print, and because Liszt felt very hurt to find 
 
BBCOLLECTIONS 33 
 
 that the credulous pubhc allowed themselves 
 to be taken in by what tickled their curiosity, 
 without in the least taking into considera- 
 tion how improbable were the things they 
 were asked to believe. One of his pupils, 
 a Cossack lady, had followed him, amongst 
 others, when he left Eome. She was a 
 countess, still fairly young, but painfully 
 thin. She had a pale inteUigent face, large 
 black eyes, pleasing manners, and was alto- 
 gether very comrtie il faut 
 
 She read Kant and Schopenhauer, and, to 
 amuse herself, had studied the microscope 
 and vivisection, and now she wanted, at any 
 price, to become a pianist. We found out 
 afterwards that she had had relations with 
 the master for several years. It was at this 
 time that Liszt began having those charming 
 musical ' at homes ' of his, which will ever be 
 remembered in the annals of artistic life in 
 Buda-Pesth, and which is still in its infancy 
 
34 PKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 in that city. Liszt was then living at the 
 house of his friend, the cur^ Schwendtner, 
 now dead. He had at his disposal a fine 
 suite of rooms, among which was a large 
 hall well suited for concerts, and he hved 
 there several years. Every Sunday after- 
 noon a select company used to meet 
 there. The entire aristocracy flocked to 
 his room, in the hope of hearing not only 
 his best pupils and the artists who, with 
 the object of visiting the master, happened 
 to be passing through Buda-Pesth, but 
 Liszt himself, who, like a popular prince, 
 poured out with a lavish hand his unique 
 talent. 
 
 All Pesth used to go. The brilliant Count 
 Aiidrassy, the Prime Minister, the handsome 
 and clever Cardinal Haynald, Count Lonyay, 
 the charming Minister of Finance, Count 
 Emeric Szechenyi, the distinguished musician 
 and composer — in fact, all those diplomatists 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 35 
 
 of the first water who had been the creators 
 of the ' New Hungary.' 
 
 Then there was a parterre of animated 
 flowers, composed of ladies vying with each 
 other for the crown of beauty and grace. 
 Then there were writers and artists who had 
 never been to such an entertainment. In a 
 word, it was the quintessence of the intellect 
 of the capital. 
 
 Ah! how charming it was to be in the 
 house of so delightful an Amphitryon ! How 
 weU he knew how to receive his guests ! 
 How he used to press dainties on his par- 
 ticular friends ! how he used to put in the 
 liqueurs an elixir strangely intoxicating, and 
 into the sweetmeats a doubly distilled sweet- 
 ness, with his wit, and never-to-be-forgotten 
 flattery, which was so cleverly wrapped up 
 that it was accepted as if it were the most 
 natural thing in the world ! 
 
 As a rule, he, first of all, got his pupils, 
 
 B 2 
 
36 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 or some foreign or native artists, all of 
 whom were only too proud to oblige him, 
 to play several pieces. Then, he often played 
 a four-handed piece with a pupil or an 
 artist, or with the Eussian countess, who 
 was a good pianist without being a musician. 
 If he asked any one to sing, he used to 
 do the accompanying himself. Then, to 
 finish up with, he completed the entertain- 
 ment by playing something grand of his own. 
 The wonderful enthusiasm which this used to 
 produce often carried him away himself. 
 
 At one of these matinees the Eussian 
 countess played Chopin's ' Grand Ballad ' in 
 G minor, and she played it with such bra- 
 vura and fire that the master publicly con- 
 gratulated her. 
 
 She had promised to help at a charity 
 concert which was to take place shortly, and 
 we all advised her to play this ballad which 
 she played so admirably. But we none of 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 37 
 
 US knew that we were giving her the worst 
 kind of advice. 
 
 On the evening of the concert a brilliant 
 audience assembled. The countess arrived, 
 on the arm of Liszt, wearing a violet velvet 
 dress buttoned up to the throat. He got her 
 a seat in the little drawing-room, with open 
 colonnades facing the audience, which was 
 reserved for the artists. 
 
 When her turn came she was very gra- 
 ciously received, and she commenced her 
 ballad, of course playing by heart. All went 
 well until the sixth page, when she hesitates 
 and gets confused. In desperation she begins 
 again, encouraged by indulgent applaiise. 
 But at the very same passage her overwrought 
 nerves betray her again. Pale as a sheet she 
 rises. Then the master, thoroughly irritated, 
 stamps his foot and calls out from where he 
 is sitting : ' Stop where you are ! ' She sits 
 down again, and, in the midst of a sickening 
 
38 PRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 silence, she begins the wretched piece for 
 the third time. Again her obstinate memory 
 deserts her. She makes a desperate effort to 
 remember the final passages, and at last fin- 
 ishes the fatal piece with a clatter of awful 
 discords. 
 
 I was never present at a more painful 
 scene. Going out, the master upbraided her 
 more than angrily, as she clung to his arm. 
 He had been severely tried, and he at last 
 lost all patience with the freaks of his pupil. 
 And, this breakdown confirming, as it did, 
 his oft-expressed opinion that she was not 
 of the stuff that artists are made of, he no 
 longer spared her. 
 
 The countess went home, took a dose of 
 laudanum, and slept for forty-eight hours. 
 They thought she was dead, but she woke 
 up again. After letters had passed between 
 them, the master insisted on her leaving 
 Pesth immediately. They say she went to 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 39 
 
 Liszt's apartments one morning with a re- 
 volver. She dehberately took aim at him. 
 'Eire!' said Liszt, advancing towards her. 
 The unhappy woman dropped her hand, aijd 
 threw herself at his feet; but all her en- 
 treaties were in vain. Liszt was inexorable, 
 and she was obhged to leave Buda-Pesth. 
 
 Then, to revenge herself on the master for 
 his harshness, the countess, who was as clever 
 as she was unscrupulous, brought out a book 
 called 'The Memoirs of a Cossack,' under 
 the pseudonym of Kobert Franz. This work 
 was shortly after followed by another called 
 'The Memoirs of a Pianist,' in which the 
 same author answered the first book, but 
 designed to make the world beheve that 
 Liszt himself had taken the trouble to correct 
 ' The Memoirs of a Cossack ' in defence of 
 his honour. Liszt was openly named in 
 both books. 
 
 Allow me to pass over these books 
 
40 FBANfOIS LISZT 
 
 in silence. They never would have been 
 mentioned at all, had it not been for the 
 fact that there were, and there still are, 
 people credulous enough to be taken in by 
 this infamous trick, and stupid enough to 
 beUeve that Liszt could have been the au- 
 thor of 'The Memoirs of a Pianist.' The 
 master was furiously angry at the publica- 
 tion of these books, in which he saw first of 
 all a vulgar money speculation, and then an 
 unsuccessful imitation of the novels ' Elle et 
 Lui' and 'Lui et Elle.' Even years after- 
 wards, he used to lose his temper when re- 
 minded of this unfortunate affair. But the 
 world loves spicy things, and we always have 
 friends who are ever ready to believe the 
 worst about us. And I was dreadfully hurt, 
 when our great fellow-countryman died, to 
 read in several French and German papers, 
 not even excepting a serious publication like 
 the 'Kcelnische Zeitung,' the revival of the 
 
BECOLLBCTIONS 41 
 
 wicked story which makes Liszt the author of 
 ' The Memoirs of a Pianist.' 
 
 It is evident that those who spread this 
 false report, and who were capable of as- 
 cribing to Liszt so mean a work, have never 
 read a line of his prose. They certainly have 
 never studied the mechanism of his refined 
 style, which was at once pompous, rich, and 
 playful. Above all, they knew nothing of 
 that lofty soul which breathes in every page 
 of the ' Letters of a Bachelor of Music' They 
 knew nothing of the daring and subhme flights 
 of that spirit which gave to the world those 
 clever philippics, by means of which the artist 
 was able to gain for his colleagues the envi- 
 able position they now occupy in the world, 
 and obtain for the new musical religion, of 
 which he was the apostle and Wagner the 
 creator, first attentive and then fanatical wor- 
 shippers. 
 
 When speaking of Liszt's pupils, I ought 
 
42 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 to mention two of them who were particu- 
 larly dear to him, and who now enjoy Euro- 
 pean reputations. First of all, Madame Sophie 
 Menter, whom he called ' the first pianist of 
 his time,' and the only one ' whom I was able 
 to teach what cannot be learnt.' 'She has a 
 singing hand,' he used to say when speak- 
 ing of her. He went to see her regularly 
 every year at her fine castle in the Tyrol, 
 and he followed her career, which became 
 more and more brilhant, with a quite pater- 
 nal satisfaction. He loved to see the beautiful 
 fruit of his own artistic grafting grow ripe. 
 This new school of pianists, which he had 
 created, absorbed and seriously occupied 
 aU his attention. He did not fail to notice 
 that the majority of his pupils under- 
 stood the ' letter ' of his teaching without 
 grasping the ' spirit ' of it. Whenever 
 he found a soil favourable for the imma- 
 terial and divine seed, how lovingly he 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 43 
 
 followed and watched its growth and de- 
 velopment ! ^ 
 
 The other pupil, whom Liszt loved like a 
 son, is Count G^za Zichy. He lost his right 
 arm, as you know, through a shooting 
 accident when he was only fifteen years 
 old. The young nobleman had given him- 
 self a year to learn to take pleasure in 
 life again, after being thus mutilated. If he 
 succeeded during that time in planning for 
 himself an existence capable of making him 
 forget his misfortune, he consented to con- 
 tinue living. But if he failed he determined 
 to blow out his brains. 
 
 This young hero, who was a born poet, 
 and gifted with great talent, as well as an 
 iron wiQ, succeeded in becoming an artist, 
 
 1 Madame Jaell is one of the master's favourite pupils. He 
 called her Ossiana. The originality of her playing is striking. 
 Her odd compositions, which are full of the unexpected, and 
 stamped with strangeness, cause us to await with interest the 
 announcement of her concert, for which liszt had good reasons 
 to predict a grand success. 
 
44 FBAXpOIS LISZT 
 
 and an artist of merit, and really unique 
 in his style. He is a distinguished com- 
 poser, and never plays anything but his 
 own compositions. In this way he is com- 
 piling a musical collection exclusively in- 
 tended for execution with the left hand. 
 He does not shirk difficulties, and with 
 his five fingers performs tours de force 
 which drew from Liszt the exclamation : 
 ' "Well, none of us could do anything like 
 that ! ' 
 
 Zichy's playing at times acts powerfully 
 on his audience ; he brings down the house, 
 and one can believe neither one's ears nor one's 
 eyes. Last year, in Paris, his audience surged 
 in a body to the piano like a rising tide, 
 to convince themselves that they were not 
 the dupes of a clever trickster. Count Zichy 
 adored the master. He always gave him 
 the credit of his triumphs; and if, after 
 some particularly striking success, telegrams 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 45 
 
 came congratulating the illustrious master 
 on the triumphs of his brilliant pupil, now 
 a master in his turn, Liszt was greatly 
 moved, and brought us these testimonials 
 of an almost fihal gratitude, which did 
 honour to both of them. The master 
 loved to be at Count Zichy's house. The 
 children of the young artist are the only 
 ones I ever heard him speak of. Their 
 pretty heads seemed to remind him of 
 the long ago, when the fair curls of little 
 Blandine, the eldest daughter, inspired her 
 father with the first song he ever wrote, 
 ' Angiolin del Hondo crin.' 
 
 Liszt sometimes showed kindnesses which 
 savoured of the courtier, but which at the 
 same time proved the unparalleled good- 
 ness of his heart. One evening, when we 
 
 had a crowd of guests, Madame de Bl , 
 
 one of the most charming women of our 
 aristocracy, went to the piano to play 
 
46 PKANfOIS LISZT 
 
 some Hungarian airs with her usual entrain, 
 when the master, ' jealous of her success,' 
 as he said, asked her to let him take 
 her place. He also played a Hungarian 
 fantasy, which none of us knew, and we 
 noticed that Count Zichy went up to the 
 piano with a puzzled look, his face show- 
 ing that he was thoroughly surprised. The 
 rendering, which was as brilUant as it 
 was captivating, completely electrified the 
 audience, and the piece was hardly finished 
 before Zichy threw himself on the master's 
 breast. 
 
 ' Are you satisfied ? ' asked Liszt. ' Have 
 I done it weU ? ' 
 
 Then Zichy told us how he had shown 
 his new composition that very morning to 
 Liszt, not wishing to write the score until 
 he obtained his opinion of it. This was 
 the very piece the master had just given 
 us the treat of hearing. It was a won- 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 47 
 
 derfiil feat of memory, and a most charming 
 proof of that dehcacy of heart which made 
 him so irresistible. 
 
 I could give a thousand similar cases 
 corroborating this thoughtfalness, whose 
 subtle charm will ever make the memory 
 of Liszt dear to those who knew him reaUy 
 well. When we were in Eome in 1881, we 
 had the good fortune of being received 
 in private by the Pope. The audience was 
 further remarkable, in that it lasted an hour. 
 We thus had the opportunity of .knowing 
 more fully this venerable and exceptionally 
 gifted man, whose eyes flashed fire, and whose 
 speech was fuU of persuasive eloquence. 
 Liszt was unweU at the time, and was 
 being nursed by his granddaughter, Daniela 
 de Billow. He seldom went out or received 
 anybody ; and in the evenings we used to 
 find him seated at a round table with his 
 granddaughter. He would be reading, and 
 
48 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 she would be bending her beautiful Muse- 
 hke head over some embroidery. 
 
 The master was always very much in- 
 terested in everything we told him about the 
 Vatican, which at that time he was seldom 
 able to visit. I fancy the audience — of which 
 we gave him every detail — impressed him 
 more than he at the time admitted. For, 
 to our unspeakable astonishment, four years 
 afterwards, Liszt sent us a handsome volume 
 of Latin and Italian sonnets recently published, 
 the author being no less a personage than 
 Leo XTTT. The book bore the following dedi- 
 cation : 
 
 ' In memory of the august audience 
 granted by His Hohness Leo XTTT . Kome, 
 October 1881.' 
 
 Thus after four years the master remem- 
 bered this brilliant hour which had shed its 
 lustre over our life. 
 
 During this stay in Eome we saw the love 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 49 
 
 and veneration with which Liszt was received 
 wherever he went. His birthday, October 
 22, was celebrated by the inauguration of the 
 ' Quintett Society,' which on that day gave 
 a brilliant matinee at the German Embassy. 
 The ambassador, M. de Kendell, was very 
 much attached to the master, who recipro- 
 cated the attachment. The concert was de- 
 lightful. The splendid pianist, Sgambati, a 
 pupH of the master's, played for the first time 
 a quintett dedicated to Liszt of his own com- 
 position. Another novelty was Liszt's sym- 
 phonic poem, ' From the cradle to the grave,' 
 composed from a sketch of our distinguished 
 fellow-countryman, Michael de Zichy. (The 
 original sketch is at the museum in Buda- 
 Pesth.) 
 
 It was in Kome that I first heard the 
 name of Antocholskii, the famous Eussian 
 sculptor. Liszt pointed out to us one of his 
 masterpieces, the tomb of the young Princess 
 
 E 
 
50 PEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 Obolenska,^ who seems to live again in the 
 marble chiselled by the artist. 
 
 Liszt showed a marked preference for 
 everything that was Kussian.^ He followed 
 with sustained interest the musical, artistic, 
 and literary progress of young Eussia. He 
 maintained ' that in Eussia they had not yet 
 begun to say anything on all those subjects 
 which Western nations have nearly exhausted 
 already. Eussia has more intellectual horizons 
 still to discover than lands to explore. From 
 there wiU come innovations in every branch 
 of science, of the fine arts, and of litera- 
 ture.' Afterwards, when Antocholskii, was 
 
 ' The torn!) of the Princess Obolenska is one of the most 
 beautiful monuments in the cemetery of Mount Testorio at 
 Rome. 
 
 ' He had often met at our house the brother of the painter 
 Vereschagine, Mr. Alexander Vereschagine, a clever writer 
 who has just published his recollections of the Turco-Russian 
 war. This original character attracted him so much that he 
 received him with exceptional amiability, played Russian airs 
 to him, and invited him to his house. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 51 
 
 kind enough to send us photographs of his 
 statues, Liszt got perfectly infatuated, so to 
 speak, with this magnificent collection. He 
 had seen in Paris the original of the ' Christ ' 
 which was in the collection sent to us. And 
 every time he gazed on it he declared that 
 our great Munkacsy had borrowed the first 
 idea of his ' Christ,' ' more human than 
 divine,' from the ' Christ ' of Antocholskii, 
 which is purely reahstic. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTER ni. 
 
 So much has been written, and. written so 
 openly, about the intercourse between Liszt 
 and the Countess d'Agoult, known in litera- 
 ture as ' Daniel Stern,' that there will be no 
 indiscretion in my telling you the truth on the 
 subject. The heart of Liszt had nothing to 
 do with this affair, serious though it was in 
 its consequences. It was passion, and never 
 love. And, after the terrible storms which 
 must have naturally arisen from the conflict 
 of two natures so dissimilar, the young man, 
 who loved his liberty, and felt sacrificed to 
 the false ambition of this disordered soul, 
 must very often have cruelly suffered under 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 53 
 
 this slavery. ' His liaison with the Countess 
 d'Agoult,' says L. Eamann, Liszt's biographer, 
 ' was not the result of reciprocal attachment, 
 developed httle by httle until it reached the 
 acme of passion ; it was in no way the fruit 
 of intellectual sympathy or a moral under- 
 standing ; it was an accident, a caprice, a 
 misfortune ! ' 
 
 The master often spoke of Madame 
 d'Agoult during our long intimate conver- 
 sations, but always with a touch of irony. 
 He judged her coldly, and without a shadow 
 of that tenderness which one's heart nearly 
 always feels if one is really in love. These 
 two natures *had nothing in common. He 
 was noble and generous, but (and I shall 
 venture to say it) too large-hearted and too 
 fuU of imagination to be ever able to fix his 
 affections on one person. 
 
 She was passionately fond of him, it is 
 true, but vain and proud, and entirely wrapped 
 
54 FRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 up in herself. Liszt was not intended for 
 a domestic life. His family hearth was the 
 world, and he found his home in the altars 
 which were raised to him wherever he went. 
 The incense which was burned around him 
 rendered him incapable of appreciating for 
 long the sweet pleasures of a home, the mo- 
 notony of which would soon have bored him. 
 He bowed to necessity when he spent ten 
 years in the company of the woman who had 
 chosen him, and who had subjected him to 
 her caprice, whether he liked it or not. Nor 
 had she taken into account his untamable 
 nature, which refused to admit the existence 
 of those links of roses which toe often seemed 
 like chains of iron. But he was great in 
 everything he did, and he acted grandly on 
 this occasion also, for he forced even the hus- 
 band of the woman who had followed him to 
 say of him, ' He was a perfect gentleman.' 
 The Countess d'Agoult, nee Viscountess of 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 55 
 
 riavigny, had known and pampered Liszt at 
 tlie time when he was still the ' little Litz,' as 
 they used to call him in Paris when he was 
 the spoilt child of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
 main, and the grand ladies used to stuff him 
 with bonbons and smother him in caresses. 
 When the countess saw him next, he was two- 
 and-twenty, and she was twenty-nine. How- 
 ever, she was in the full splendour of her beauty, 
 and permeated with ideas of romanticism and 
 of its subtle and false sophisms. George Sand 
 preached its gospel in her works, and its chief 
 and only aim appeared to be the adoration of 
 what they called in those days une grande 
 passion. Passion was allowed every privilege, 
 and the most improper things were considered 
 heroism in the cause, provided they were done 
 in the name of sentiment. 
 
 L. Eamann, Liszt's only serious and truth- 
 ful biographer, describes every event in this 
 page of the master's life, and, with the 
 
56 FBAN^OIS LISZT 
 
 exception of a few mistakes, he describes 
 them truthfully. 
 
 The great work, ' Franyois Liszt : his Life 
 from 1811 to 1840,' was written from notes, 
 letters, and Liszt's personal explanations, who 
 regularly corresponded with his biographer 
 until the very last. This work not only gives 
 a minute account of the intellectual develop- 
 ment of Liszt, but at the same time it is a bio- 
 graphy of his works up to the year 1840. 
 
 'The Countess d'Agoult,' says Eamann, 
 ' was just the woman to fire the imagination 
 of a lively and passionate young man. But 
 whilst he was dreaming of the ideal, as fore- 
 seen in the precocious love of his youth for 
 Mademoiselle de Saint-Cricq, " chaste and 
 pure as the alabaster of a divinely made 
 cup," the mad caprice and the disordered 
 vanity of the countess became excited at the 
 thought of " the influence of women over the 
 fate and Hfe' of celebrated men." Still Liszt 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 57 
 
 had an austere mother, whose influence he 
 felt, and he had not yet become " the Love- 
 lace pianist and fine gentleman," as M. de 
 Blaze Bury describes him to us later on. 
 
 'AU that was noble and honest in him 
 rebelled against this ever-increasing folly and 
 against the countess's hypocritical airs, who 
 now began to pose as a martyr to her passion. 
 On those occasions 'when he realised what he 
 was doing he did not spare himself any more 
 than the woman who was throwing in his 
 eyes the golden dust of her sophisms. He 
 castigated himself with bitter irony without 
 calculating the effect of what he did. He put 
 'Leone Leonie ' into the hands of the syren. 
 
 ' The unhappy woman, bhnded by her one 
 idea of daring everything to attach his grow- 
 ing renown to her chariot, took the young 
 man's irony for serious speaking, and his 
 reticence for an appeal to her strength of 
 mind. 
 
58 FBANpOIS LISZT 
 
 ' She herself was the victim of her educa- 
 tion, of the worship which was always paid 
 to her, and of the pernicious current which 
 drew clever people into a fatal stream. And 
 she drew tighter and tighter the strings of 
 this intrigue, and made it into an inextricable 
 net, when an unexpected and painful event 
 took place, and interrupted this burning 
 idyl. 
 
 ' The countess's favourite child, little 
 Louise, only six years old, died of a painful 
 disease. Face to face with death the vanities 
 of the world disappear. The sacred sorrow 
 of a mother placed on the countess a halo so 
 ideal and so pure that the young artist, who 
 had taken his share of the family grief, ex- 
 perienced a sort of awakening. He had long 
 been the prey of doubts, and was dissatisfied 
 with himself. He now investigated his heart, 
 and looked into his soul. He pointed out 
 to the countess the pitfalls towards which 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 59 
 
 their fatal love was leading them, without 
 giving them either happiness or peace ; and, 
 hoping to be encouraged in doing what 
 was right by this woman, who, because she 
 was a woman, was doubly his elder, he left 
 Paris. 
 
 ' But he had not taken into consideration 
 the labyrinth full of pitfalls which is called a 
 woman's heart. The countess, hopelessly 
 entangled in the net of her own heated and 
 perverted imagination, had the courage to 
 leave husband, child, and position, but she 
 had not the strength of mind to leave the 
 man by whose help she hoped to reach the 
 giddy heights of a grande passion. She left 
 everything and followed Liszt. This step 
 settled the future lot of the young man, . . . 
 a drop of poison had fallen into the cup of 
 his life ; he had to drink of this cup, . . . and 
 he drank of it.' 
 
 Here is the place to correct an error 
 
60 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 which has slipped into all the biographies of 
 Liszt. It is asserted that the question of mar- 
 riage having arisen between them, Madame 
 d'Agoult is credited with having cynically 
 replied : ' The Countess d'Agoult will never 
 consent to become Madame Liszt.' This is 
 absolutely untrue. I have often spoken of 
 this to Liszt, and he has always given me the 
 same reply : ' It is a smart saying, which she 
 is given credit for, but which she never 
 uttered, for the good reason that she never 
 had the chance ! Even my most trustworthy 
 biographer, Madame Eamann, repeats it. I 
 assure you it is false. There never was a 
 question of marriage between us.' 
 
 He ironically called it ' a smart saying.' 
 He was a gentleman in the broadest accepta- 
 tion of the word, and, having an innate sense 
 of his own dignity, he could not, while he 
 lived, give a public denial to this remark, 
 insulting to him both as a man and as an 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 61 
 
 artist. Still, the fact of his speaking of it so 
 often proves how much this untruthful story- 
 must have wounded his pride, and how 
 anxious he was to have it refuted after his 
 death. 
 
 Monsieur Trifonof also, and as a matter ot 
 course, reproduces the old story, and he even 
 adds that ' Liszt had proposed to the countess 
 that they should become Protestants, which 
 would considerably simplify the matter of 
 divorce.' At this part of the work the master 
 has placed in the margin a ' No ! ' vigor- 
 ously underhned, repeating in writing what 
 he had told us verbally : ' This is not true. 
 The question of marriage was never con- 
 sidered during either our happy or unhappy 
 days.' 
 
 AU the biographers of Liszt, in imitation 
 of Monsieur Trifonof, join in praising the 
 ' perfect and unequalled beauty ' of Madame 
 d'Agoult. This is another mistake. Liszt has 
 
62 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 scratched out these words, and put in their 
 place : ' She was good-looking,' ^ and added : 
 ' One of the frequenters of her house said of 
 
 ^ ' To be good-looking ' and ' to be a beauty ' were very 
 different things in the opinion of Liszt. ' A beauty,' said he, 
 • ought to be perfect, and perfection is one of the rarest things 
 in this world.' It was precisely ct propos of Madame d'Agoult 
 that he gave us examples ' of that beauty without a flaw,' 
 which he had come across in his journey through life. First of 
 all, there is the Princess Esterhazy, the exquisitely beautiful 
 ambassadress who had to leave England in consequence of her 
 much too realistic behaviour. Liszt said of Prince Esterhazy 
 ' that he had a genius for display.' He was very intimate with 
 him, and there was always a place for him at his table, where 
 he met all the best people. He again saw the handsome prin- 
 cess at Hietzing, at the court of the King of Hanover. ' She 
 wallied on crutches, but she was still majestic, every inch a 
 princess, and admired as much as in the past.' 
 
 The second beauty, ' who besides was gifted with an irre- 
 sistible charm,' was the PrincessMary of Hatzfeld-Trachenberg, 
 the great friend of Wagner and of Liszt, whom the latter 
 called ' the most amiable of princesses.' And really when, 
 last year in Venice, we saw her advancing towards us, in her 
 crimson-furnished drawing-rooms, wrapped in long mourning 
 robes (her son-in-law. Count de Schleinitz, had recently died), 
 we were struck by the incomparable grace of her royal pre- 
 sence. Time had had no effect on her magnificent carriage, on 
 the subtle charm of her beautiful velvety eyes, or on her sweet 
 and captivating smile. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 63 
 
 her : Her look is German, and her smile 
 Frencli.' 
 
 With the exception of her complexion, 
 which was a little doubtful, she had all the 
 attractions of a blonde, and a magnificent 
 head of hair of a marvellous colour (which 
 she afterwards lost). Liszt used to relate, 
 with a certain air of complacency, how the 
 countess loved to go out and amuse herself, 
 and how he took her one evening to the 
 Hall of ApoUo at Venice. An Itahan, at the 
 sight of this stream of gold, exclaimed with 
 admiration : ' Ecco Ik una capighatura da 
 Apollo ! ' 
 
 Still, the inordinate vanity of Madame 
 d'Agoult must often have irritated him ; and 
 the absence of all greatness in her selfish and 
 despotic soul could never harmonise with the 
 Olympian nature of Liszt. He had, it is true, 
 the weaknesses of the Olympian gods, but he 
 also possessed their good qualities in the same 
 
64 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 proportion as themselves. For all that, she 
 had succeeded in taking possession of so large 
 a part of his life that, in spite of the coldness 
 and the artificiahty which must have existed 
 between them (which is shown by the banter- 
 ing and mocking tones in the reminiscences of 
 the master), he sometimes became quite elo- 
 quent when evoking her memory. 
 
 ' She was a very idle woman,' the master 
 told us. ' This singularly worldly woman had 
 made her life a void by breaking with her 
 family and with society. She wished to be my 
 muse, my Egeria, and obstinately stuck to a , 
 task for which she was never meant. Besides, 
 I was never, in the long run, able to put up 
 with her artifices ; she concealed her designs 
 too badly. At times she irritated me exces- 
 sively, and one day, when she compared her- 
 self to the Beatrice of Dante, supplementing 
 the comparison by a tirade on the ennobling 
 influence of woman, I answered her pretty 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 65 
 
 roughly : " You are wrong ; it is the Dantes 
 who create the Beatrices, and the real Bea- 
 trices die at the age of eighteen — that's all ! " 
 Louis de Eonchaud was present at the time. 
 " There's the man," said I, " who would have 
 pleased you ! " But let us come back to what 
 I wanted to teU you. She was very lazy, and 
 passed her days yawning. Whilst I was away 
 and very busy, she used to get bored to 
 death. 
 
 ' " Try and write something," I said to her 
 one day, when I came home and found her 
 hysterically complaining of the weary length 
 of the dragging hours. " You are more than 
 clever enough to do it, you have seen a great 
 deal, and you ought to be able to write. Try, 
 it will amuse you." 
 
 ' And in this way I got her to make a start. 
 She beat her wings, and actually discovered 
 she knew how to fly. Little by little she got 
 used to the work, and I found, strange to say, 
 
 F 
 
66 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 that she began to really take an interest 
 in it. 
 
 ' One day she showed me a little note- 
 book, and with the look of an inspired muse 
 she said to me : " I have followed your ad- 
 vice. I have written my memoirs ; but I have 
 not been able to hit on a name for them. 
 Help me ! Baptise them for me ! " 
 
 ' " Eead them first ! " said I. 
 
 ' She then read me her first efforts. They 
 were fairly good, with plenty of wit in them, 
 and weU. written. " So, you must have a title 
 for your ' Souvenirs,' must you ? Well, here's 
 one : ' Swagger and Lies ; "" and Liszt smiled 
 one of his wicked smiles at the recollection of 
 this more than interesting Httle scene. ' But 
 be sure and keep this little adventure to your- 
 self, my dear child,' he said to me afterwards, 
 feeling guilty perhaps for taking so much pre- 
 m'ature pleasure in the scheme of his httle 
 revenge. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 67 
 
 On another occasion we were talking of 
 Balzac, a man he greatly appreciated, and 
 whom he had known pretty well. 
 
 ' He was a charming fellow,' said Liszt to us, 
 ' and a tremendous talker, and I loved to get 
 him to talk. They once tried to make us quar- 
 rel, but I wasn't going to allow that. You 
 must have read his novel, " Beatrice, or Com- 
 pulsory Love." I maintain that I do not figure 
 in it in any way ; but Madame d'Agoult was 
 not of my opinion. Shortly after the appear- 
 ance of the said novel, up gets Madame 
 d'Agoult and goes for me in a flood of 
 weeping. 
 
 ' " You can flatter yourself that you have 
 nice friends," said she to me. " Here's Bal- 
 zac writing a novel about me. He traduces 
 me, and makes me ridiculous in the eyes of 
 the world. It's a shame, an infamous shame; 
 you must go and demand satisfaction. Your 
 honour is at stake as much as mine ! " 
 
 J 2 
 
68 PKAN90IS LISZT 
 
 ' I was stunned at this sudden outburst. 
 She cried with rage, she stamped her foot, 
 and was altogether beside herself. But I — 
 I didn't see the least necessity to go and fight 
 with Balzac about a novel, and make myself 
 responsible for Madame d'Agoult's conduct. 
 What was the good of picking a quarrel with 
 the author for an imaginary thing which in no 
 way concerned me ? It was pure Kecskemet^ 
 to go and scold a novelist for having personi- 
 fied this or that fanciful idea. 
 
 ' " Is your name in it ? " I asked the weep- 
 ing woman. " Did you find your address in 
 it, or the number of your house ? " 
 
 '" No ! " 
 
 ' " Well, then, what are you crying 
 about ? What right have you to feel yourself 
 attacked ? Let him whom the cap fits wear 
 
 1 Kecskemfet is a provincial town in Hungary, which Liszt 
 visited thirty years ago, when it stUl was only a large village. 
 It remained in hia eyes the embodiment of all that is vulgar. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 69 
 
 it ! If you can show me your name, your 
 address, and the exact number of your house, 
 I will go and call Balzac out ; otherwise, I will 
 do nothing of the sort ! " 
 
 ' " Well, read the infamous book, then ! 
 Just see how he treats me ! See what an 
 insulting portrait of me he paints, and what a 
 cruel story of my life he gives ! " 
 
 '"I can only repeat, ' Let him whom the 
 cap fits wear it.' What business have you to 
 recognise yourself in Beatrice? By wishing 
 to revenge yourself on the picture and make 
 the writer responsible, you only proclaim its 
 accuracy to the world. Take no notice, and 
 nobody will think anything about it ; nobody, 
 not even your women friends — if you still 
 have any. What an insane idea it is to 
 wish to draw pubhc attention on yourself 
 by picking a quarrel with Balzac ! On the 
 contrary, I will introduce him to you, and 
 that will set your mind at rest." 
 
70 PKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 'She was very fond of dining at the 
 fashionable restaurants, of going to the little 
 theatres, and afterwards to the little supper- 
 rooms. One evening I invited Balzac to 
 make a third. He was more charming than 
 usual, talked the whole time for two or three 
 hours, and Madame d'Agoult's anger vanished 
 in the presence of our deHghtful guest. She 
 forgave him for taking his subjects where he 
 found them. 
 
 ' I seldom read novels,' continued Liszt, 
 ' but I made a point of secretly glancing over 
 the pages of the much-abused work. I could 
 not but admire the intuitive genius of Balzac. 
 Madame de Eochefide is a portrait drawn by 
 a master-hand ; it is so accurate a photograph 
 that I, who thought I thoroughly knew this 
 woman, with her way of courting notoriety as 
 much as other women shun it, was amazed, 
 and actually understood her better after 
 reading the book. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 71 
 
 ' Madame d'Agoult was the cleverest 
 woman I . ever met in matters of dress, and 
 Balzac made excellent use of this striking 
 characteristic. She was anxious to be taken 
 au sirieux in her aspirations, and to be 
 regarded as a free-thinker, and this was what 
 particularly wounded her. But, as soon as 
 she became acquainted with Balzac, she 
 softened to the extent of feehng flattered at 
 being taken as a model for such a master- 
 piece.' 
 
 The years passed with Madame d'Agoult, 
 marred as they were by many vexations, 
 could weU be counted, hke years of war, as 
 double in the hfe of Liszt. The great respon- 
 sibility which he found unexpectedly thrown 
 on him brought him suddenly to maturity, 
 and acted wonderfully on his development as 
 an artist and as a man. Irresistibly drawn 
 towards everything scientific and towards 
 clever people, he had surrounded himself in 
 
72 PRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 Geneva with a circle of friends consisting, ia 
 spite of his youth, principally of learned men, 
 who, though they consistently paid court to 
 Madame d'Agoult, at the same time put some- 
 thing of seriousness into her intellectual and 
 moral surroundings. The countess was pas- 
 sionately fond of argument ; her penetrating 
 mind, although warped in many respects, 
 was fuU of the unexpected and the whimsical. 
 She thirsted for glory and renown, and clung 
 to everything capable of bringing her into^ 
 notice and enhancing her rdle of guiding 
 star. So she set herself to turn the heads 
 of these old gentlemen, and made herself the 
 centre of a brilliant constellation of cele- 
 brities. 
 
 ' She was an enchantress to those who 
 were not in the secret,' said the master. 
 ' How well she fenced with those grey-heads, 
 how skilfully she threw dust in their eyes 
 with her paradoxes, her tirades, and all the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 73 
 
 battery of her feminine eloquence ! It was in 
 Geneva amongst these serious men that she 
 unconsciously accumulated a portion of those 
 thoughts which one day " Daniel Stern " was 
 to make use of. Old Sismonde — you know 
 whom I mean, Sismonde de Sismondi, the his- 
 torian, who had the heart of a boy of twenty 
 beneath his garb of old gentleman — doted on 
 the countess ; and he was the first to tell her 
 that she was made to take a part in politics. 
 This started her ! She began by interesting 
 herself in aU fallen greatness, and Geneva 
 was fuU at that time with that sort of thing. 
 There were refugees from every country ; 
 dethroned monarchs, disgraced ministers, and 
 unsuccessful generals could be found in any 
 of the streets. The countess took it into her 
 head to mix herself up with all this sort of 
 political scum, the secret agents of which 
 are not always gentlemen with the cleanest of 
 hands. Things went their way without my 
 
74 PEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 suspecting anything very mucli, until, one 
 day, she came to me with a very red face, and 
 clearly very much agitated. 
 
 '"Why didn't you tell me what sort of 
 people these refugees are ? " said she to 
 me. 
 
 ' " Why," replied I, " they are delightful 
 folks ! " 
 
 ' " Yes, so I find ! " 
 
 ' " Then it's your own fault. You ought 
 to know how to tell the chafi" from the wheat. 
 What have you done ? come, tell me." 
 
 ' Then she told me the wretched story of 
 her first steps in politics. A certain Pole, 
 called Jablowszky, or Hrablowszky — I don't 
 quite remember the name — got her to take an 
 interest in the fate of a prisoner of very high 
 degree who was head of the party of liberty, 
 and on whom depended a would-be move- 
 ment of great pohtical import. You know, 
 I never mixed myself up with that sort of 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 75 
 
 thing, having akeady very fixed ideas as to 
 the position of artists in all matters of politics. 
 And, in all this business, I only understood 
 one thing, and that is that she managed the 
 affair, and that the individual in question 
 had been able to make such good use of 
 the general tendency, that he worked on 
 the credulous charity of several of the best 
 people. Further, that he bolted, taking with 
 him a pretty large sum of money which had 
 been entrusted to him to be conveyed to its 
 destination and serve in the noble cause of 
 freedom. The plot had been so admirably 
 conceived, and the rascal had so accurately 
 gauged the character of the people he had 
 chosen, that after all he was not pursued, 
 everybody being thoroughly ashamed at 
 allowing themselves to be so easily duped. 
 At Prince Belgiojoso's suggestion, the affair 
 was hushed up. The countess lost some 
 hundreds of francs in the business, and at the 
 
76 PRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 same time all taste for this sort of contraband 
 politics. 
 
 ' StUl, when some years afterwards her 
 " Souvenirs " were pubUshed, I was curious 
 enough to want to see if the " abortive dehver- 
 ance " was mentioned by way of a first per- 
 formance. But she left the incident wrapped 
 in obhvion, and, hke many other experiences, 
 she disdained to remember it.' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 77 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Liszt's eyes had become very weak, and I 
 acted as his secretary and used to read to 
 him. He was a perfect courtier, and knew 
 how to flatter. 
 
 ' You read so well,' he said, ' that your 
 emphasis explains things to me ; for, as you 
 know, I am shockingly ignorant ' (?). I read 
 to him the article on Tourgu^nief, by Melchior 
 de Vogue, which had appeared in the 
 *Kevue des Deux Mondes.' He particularly 
 admired this writer's style, and recommended 
 me to study him, while making a note to 
 call upon M. de Vogti^ if ever he went again 
 to France. I know not whether he ever 
 
78 TKANyOIS LISZT 
 
 carried out his intention. Alas ! after his 
 return from Paris I never saw the dear man 
 again. He always took a deep interest in 
 our hterary Efforts. I had to read to him 
 everything we wrote in French, as we got 
 on with our work; and I was amazed at 
 his rapt attention, as well as at the ever- 
 watchful criticism of his vast and trenchant 
 intellect. While I was reading a study of 
 my sister's on our great patriot and inno- 
 vator, Count Szech^nyi, he stopped me, 
 sat down at my writing-table, and hurriedly 
 wrote the following lines on a sheet of 
 paper : ' To be introduced when the article 
 appears in book form : ' — 
 
 ^Between SzecMnyi and Kossuth there ex- 
 isted a political duel which lasted for fifteen 
 years. Both were deeply wounded. Szichenyi 
 was beaten, hut Kossuth's triumph was short- 
 lived. He had to hide the crown of Hungary, 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 79 
 
 and all his eloquence, moving though it was, 
 in his own country achieved no lasting or 
 serious e^ect abroad. 
 
 'F. Liszt.' 
 
 On another occasion I was reading to 
 him an article on Vereschagine, the Eussian 
 paintfer. Liszt, who had seen so nauch, and 
 seen it so well, was particularly interested in 
 everything which soared above the common- 
 place and avoided all beaten tracks. He 
 remembered so distinctly certain poetical 
 pictures of Vereschagine which he had seen 
 at the first Exhibition in 1884, that he was 
 delighted to renew his acquaintance with 
 them ' living and moving ' at the call of my 
 pen. 
 
 He was very fond of expressions nicely 
 put, and of ' clever word-painting.' His 
 musical ear was as pleased with the harmony 
 of language as with some sweet melody ; 
 
80 PKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 and we often spent hours searching for the 
 exact word which would round off a sentence 
 musically without altering the sense of it. 
 In order to spur me on and keep this before 
 me, he often quoted his favourite saying : 
 ' Writings only live on account of the style ; ' 
 and if even then I sometimes lost my patience, 
 he called to my recollection Maubert, 'the 
 Benvenuto Cellini of prose,' who was capable 
 of spending a whole night working at a sen- 
 tence which refused to take a form pleasing 
 to his fastidious taste. The rich collection 
 of little notes written by himself which I 
 possess shows how keen he was to make his 
 sentences complete and concise, and also as 
 full of meaning as possible. 
 
 These miniature masterpieces would fur- 
 nish a curious handbook to the thousand 
 ways in which a few words can be cleverly 
 put. He never lost an opportunity, however 
 trivial, to put into action the marvellous me- 
 
HECOLLBCTIONS 81 
 
 chanism of his mind. He never used the 
 same phrase twice, and on every occasion you 
 will find a happy thought in his Httle notes of 
 ten or twenty Hues. 
 
 The master had got into the habit of 
 sending me in the morning one of these little 
 notes to say he was coming in the evening, 
 and asking whether we had any engagements. 
 Then he used to come sans ceremonie, on 
 purpose to have a few hours' chat, and he 
 always used to bring me the latest publica- 
 tions which were sent to him from every 
 country, any newspaper article which had 
 struck him, or a book of music. 
 
 Sometimes, the Secretary of the Hun- 
 garian Academy, Monseigneur Fraknoi, the 
 eminent historian, Cardinal Haynald,^ who was 
 
 ^ Cardinal Haynald met Liszt for the last time towards the 
 end of July, at the house of Munkicsy,atKolpach, the painter's 
 country house in Luxembourg. They passed a delightful 
 evening together, although Liszt had missed his train, and 
 only arrived after the grand dinner was over, for which he was- 
 
82 FKANfOIS LISZT 
 
 bound to the master by ties of the warmest 
 friendship, Count Zichy, or one or two hvely 
 ladies, were of the party ; and, while they 
 played whist, they enjoyed with us the in- 
 tellectual fireworks with which this inex- 
 haustible mind of a thousand reflections loved 
 to dazzle us. 
 
 We talked of everything at these friendly 
 meetings. There is nothing in art or science, 
 not to mention abstract questions, upon which 
 we didn't touch ; and I was often amazed at 
 his colossal inemory, embellished as it was 
 by profound knowledge, which seemed ever 
 to be growing more varied. But, in spite of 
 
 expected, with no end of ovations at the station, &c. The 
 Cardinal had to leave very early in the morning, and hegged 
 Liszt not to put himself out to see him off. But he had for- 
 gotten that the master got up regularly at three o'clock, did ■ 
 his work, and went to the first mass. Now, no sooner was the 
 Cardinal up next morning than he was greeted with strains of 
 heavenly music. Liszt was saying good-bye to him by playing 
 a march of Schubert's of which he was very fond. It was the 
 last time the master ever touched the piano. 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 83 
 
 this mass of information, Liszt was always 
 regretting that he had not gone through 
 regular and consecutive studies. He main- 
 tained that he always felt the want of that 
 rudimentary teaching which they had neg- 
 lected to give him. ' I scribbled notes be- 
 fore having written a letter of the alphabet, 
 and I plunged into mystical and philosophical 
 books before being quite certain about my 
 grammar. Oh ! that confounded grammar 
 has given me lots of trouble at times.' Still, 
 liszt was possessed of wonderful erudition, 
 which was aU the more remarkable in that 
 it comprised several literatures. 
 
 During a winter course, M. Eogeard 
 (the author of ' Propos de Labienus,' a pam- 
 phlet which, under the second empire, got 
 him expelled from French territory) held 
 very interesting conferences in Buda-Pesth in 
 the drawing-room of Madame de Gerando, nee 
 Countess Teleky, the great friend of Michelet 
 
84 FBANfOIS LISZT 
 
 and of Eeclus. M. Eogeard had found friends 
 amongst the members of the Gerando family, 
 which was ever ready to lend a helping hand 
 to the oppressed, and which besides was 
 enthusiastic about everything scientific and 
 literary, as well as devoted to all 'prophets 
 of the Truth,' in whatever form they preached 
 its gospel. These soirees were very select, 
 and seasoned with dehghtful conversation. 
 When the master was in Buda-Pesth he never 
 missed being present at these evenings, fol- 
 lowing with the livehest interest the elabora- 
 tion of those questions which he understood 
 so well himself There was no set pro- 
 gramme. Eogeard used to sit at a httle table 
 and talk with his audience after giving a sort 
 of outhne of his lecture : ' The philosophers 
 and writers of the seventeenth century ; ' ' The 
 salons of the eighteenth century ; ' ' The 
 champions of the hterature of the sixteenth 
 century,' &c. I several times had the pleasure 
 
EBCOLLECTIONS 85 
 
 of sitting next to Liszt, and then lie used to 
 whisper to me beforehand the names, the 
 dates, the facts, &c., which Eogeard would 
 speak of. 
 
 It was very amusing, for often he used to 
 find fault with the lecturer — not aloud, of 
 course, but loud enough for him to hear, if 
 he had quick ears. Nor had German phi- 
 losophy any secrets for Liszt ; and I could 
 never understand how the same brain could 
 be on such good terms with all the great 
 atheists, and enjoy their arguments as if 
 he were a judge, and a gourmet in such 
 matters, and, at the same time, have a faith so 
 lively and so naive as to be like that of a 
 peasant who does not even know how to read. 
 
 The idea of God had been rooted in his 
 mind from his childhood. His soul seemed 
 like a diamond which the rust of doubt could 
 never tarnish. The sacred fire which ani- 
 mated him brought him so near to his divine 
 
86 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 origin,- that no philosophy could alter the in- 
 tuition which drew him towards the Eternal. 
 Therefore, when he took orders for purely 
 worldly reasons, of which I must not speak, 
 he felt a deep contentment. He knew him- 
 self to be from henceforth sheltered from all 
 vain pretensions, and he took refuge in the 
 bosom of that same Church whose mysticism 
 had such attractions for him in his youth 
 that his father always feared he would take 
 orders in a moment of exaltation. 
 
 The feehng of security which his cloth 
 gave him was shown by his cutting words, 
 the retrospective effect of which he did not 
 perhaps always realise. One day when he 
 was playing whist at our house, they began 
 joking about the emancipation of the clergy 
 in the matter of celibacy. ' What do you 
 think of it, dear master ? ' said I to Liszt. 
 ' Would you vote for the new movement ? ' 
 
 ' Gregory VII. was a great philanthropist,' 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 87 
 
 replied lie, after a moment's silence, and with 
 a professional gravity which laid great stress 
 on what he said. His true piety, become 
 part of his nature, was in no way connected 
 with outward forms. His prayer-book, his 
 breviary, and a collection of old Bibles were 
 always on his table. In the very midst of the 
 most intoxicating triumphs, an irresistible 
 need of collecting his thoughts dragged him 
 to the foot of the altar. Then he ecHpsed 
 himself, he fought bravely with the demons 
 attacking him, and, striving to recover his in- 
 ward peace, he reappeared after a time more 
 impetuous and more brUliant than ever. He 
 explained to me one day his retreats, when I 
 was complaining of the power of the distrac- 
 tions of the world, and uttered on this subject 
 the following memorable words : 
 
 ' One ought never to allow oneself to be 
 carried away by the stream. The soul of 
 an artist ought to be like a lonely rock. 
 
88 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 surrounded, and often buried, beneath the 
 waves, but, in spite of that, immovable. It 
 is only in this way that he can preserve 
 his originality, and save from the intemper- 
 ances of life the ideal he seeks to reahse.' 
 
 On another occasion he said to me : 
 
 ' The moment I am alone I pick up the 
 threads of my thoughts and of my inter- 
 rupted work. One should never " muse." 
 It is an enervating habit, wastes an awful lot 
 of time, and never leads to anything.' 
 
 What excellent teaching ! . . . . These 
 words explain to us how Liszt was able to 
 complete the immense work represented by 
 his life. And he was conscious of it too. 
 
 ' Have you written the history of your 
 hfe ? ' I asked him one day. 
 
 ' It is enough to have lived such a life as 
 mine,' he replied in a grave voice. 
 
 As I have told you, we talked of every- 
 thing ; still, there were subjects which, as a 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 89 
 
 rule, he preferred to avoid. But if one could 
 once start him on them he was inexhaustible. 
 One evening I read a clever little thing to 
 him of my sister Stephanie's. 
 
 ' And what is it called ? ' asked Liszt. 
 
 ' " Eve," dear master, a subject which you 
 must thoroughly understand.' 
 
 ' Not at aU, not at all,' replied he, shaking 
 his head. ' I have not sufficiently eaten of 
 the apple ! ' 
 
 Of course a discussion on love and on 
 women followed. 
 
 He hated everything ' vulgar,' and I am 
 very much afraid that virtue in woman, not 
 as an abstract idea, but as an existing fact, 
 struck him as being more vulgar than moral. 
 He could never understand that an individu- 
 ality as extraordinary as his own was not 
 capable of really judging women. 
 
 Unconsciously, he always brought into 
 existence exceptional cases, and such was 
 
90 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 liis ascendency that one felt inclined to call it 
 sorcery. So many celebrated ■women had 
 fastened themselves to the wheels of his 
 chariot, delighting in a slavery the chains of 
 which they themselves had willingly forged, 
 that it is not surprising he should have re- 
 tained untU quite late in life the arch-romantic 
 and widely broad views with which the 
 author of 'Lelia, Leone Leoni,' &c., had 
 impregnated the line of thought of his times. 
 
 In this respect Liszt had remained a dis- 
 ciple of George Sand. Sovereign love, quite 
 irrespective of the worth of the individual, 
 was the only love which Liszt recognised. 
 And it was women who kept him in this 
 opinion. 
 
 The saying of a woman, who was as clever 
 as she was pretty, makes us understand better 
 than anything else the nature of Liszt's rela- 
 tions with women in general. He very much 
 admired a certain Countess Eev , to whom. 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 91 
 
 by the way, he dedicated several of his com- 
 positions. She said to a friend that liszt 
 could not ' wait about ' and love ' one ' 
 woman, but that he would continue his 
 triumphal march, offering the charity of his 
 affection on all sides to the crowd of women 
 who threw themselves at him. 
 
 'To have been loved by Liszt, if only 
 for one day, would be joy enough for life,' 
 said the infatuated woman who had long and 
 warmly loved him. 
 
 Still, he was wont to use expressions, in- 
 spired no doubt by experience, whose sarcastic 
 , . meaning proved how little he knew of ' dis- 
 creet happiness : ' 
 
 ' Women always make a boast of the love 
 they feel, and particularly of the passion they 
 inspired.' 
 
 'Women do not believe in a passion 
 which avoids notoriety.' 
 
 ' Misunderstood women are generally 
 
92 PBANfOIS LISZT 
 
 women who have been too well under- 
 stood.' 1 
 
 This Titan must have had his heart as 
 strongly as was his body not to have lost his 
 balance under the attack of these continual 
 adulations. I believe he treated his heart as 
 he treated his body, that is, with supreme 
 contempt, whilst his soul ruled over both. 
 He would still be living had he shown pity on 
 the covering of that soul of fire whose wings. 
 bore him up when his feet refused to do their 
 office. 
 
 And he obeyed but his soul when body 
 and soul could no longer keep pace with each 
 other — a sad truth which he refused to admit. 
 
 ' Elisabeth of Eoumelia has written, among other epigrams, 
 one which is word for word the same. When I first saw it 
 some years ago I took the liberty of putting it into English 
 doggerel. May I take a further liberty and quote it ? — 
 
 ' Sweet lady, when you ceased to please, 
 
 You dubbed yourself " femme incomprise." 
 
 Now, let me tell you for your good, 
 
 'Twas you who were too understood.' , 
 
 B. P. W. 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 93 
 
 If from anxiety or politeness he was asked : 
 ' How do you feel, dear master ? ' lie invari- 
 ably replied, ' Oh ! /am always well ! I 
 don't take any notice of Fran9ois Liszt ! ' 
 
 No, it is true ! he took no notice of him ! 
 He let him die ! 
 
94 FBAN90IS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Although Liszt prided himself on being a 
 stoic, his health was so visibly impaired that 
 he was obliged to yield to the force of cir- 
 cumstances and sometimes keep his room. 
 He was very pleased on these occasions if we 
 devoted a little of our time to him. So he 
 tried to attract us by offering us what he 
 knew we should Uke best, as will be seen by 
 the following letter : — 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 95 
 
 y^lje^ i^h^z^L^ ^ > ■^-<^ \/€^^LcJ^ 
 
 ri 
 
 
 ^uz^^^>x^ 
 
96 FKANpOIS LISZT 
 
 '&i^\. 
 
 
 
 ^TA '^^rt^ /e^^^^wv/e^ 
 
 7 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 
 
 97 
 
 ^c^-cx 2 
 
 ■e ?<s 
 
 
 e_ 
 
 i/CcA 
 
 09 i^/^/^y/^ 
 
 TVaiM^atzan o^ Letter. 
 ' Vebt Deab Kind Ones, — I dare not go out to-day, as I 
 caught cold yesterday. If you have no other engagement, you 
 win give me great pleasure by coming to continue our chats, 
 biographical and otherwise. Come this evening early to the 
 house of 
 
 ' Your very affectionate servant, 
 'Wednesday. 'FEANgois Liszt. 
 
 ' The automedon Paul takes this note to you, and will bring 
 
98 , FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 I was very fond of these ' biographical 
 chats,' and I appreciated them all the more 
 when they led the master on to say what 
 he really thought, a thing which happened 
 rarely. 
 
 Having lived all his life in contact with 
 the world, and having seen society in every 
 form, he had contracted the habit of exhibit- 
 ing a certain surface amiabihty which differed 
 greatly from his manner amongst tried 
 friends. The courtier and the artist fine- 
 gentleman disappeared then, and he aston- 
 ished us by a captivating simplicity which, 
 for all that, was not wanting in grandeur. 
 He gave to his conversation a less sarcastic, 
 though a deeper turn, and brilliant thoughts 
 followed each other with such rapidity that, 
 when I was alone, I found to my sorrow, 
 
 you here, where you -will find a very appetising feast, sent by 
 Madame Fold vary. As a hors-d'ceuvre be good enough, to bring 
 the biographical article (Trifonof's) on F. L., which we began 
 yesterday.' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 99 
 
 while correcting my notes, that I did not 
 remember one-half of the sayings of Liszt. 
 
 During the evening of the invitation by 
 letter, we talked music, and, as usual, he told 
 us many most interesting things. 
 
 The opposite of Wagner — who in the 
 matter of art only recognised dancing (mimic), 
 poetry, and music, and disowned architecture, 
 sculpture, and painting, making an exception in 
 favour of landscape-painting, to which he gave 
 a very small position in what he called hving 
 art — Liszt, whose universal nature led him to 
 seek varied impressions, felt a strong leaning 
 towards every branch of art. He maintained 
 that music and painting mingled and com- 
 pleted each other. One of the dreams of his 
 youth, which he never succeeded in reahsing, 
 had been to give a concert among the pictures 
 at the Louvre. This taste of Liszt's for 
 painting is to be found in several of his com- 
 positions, conceived under the impression 
 
 H 2 
 
100 TEANfOIS LISZT 
 
 produced by some masterpiece. For instance, 
 ' The Battle of the Huns,' composed from the 
 justly celebrated canvas of Kaulbach ; then 
 the oratorio, ' St. Elisabeth,' suggested origin- 
 ally by the pictures of M. de Schwind at the 
 Wartburg, representing scenes from the life 
 of St. Elisabeth. Two magnificent drawings 
 from the hand of Gustave Dor6 furnish one 
 more proof in support of Liszt's opinion, but 
 in an inverse sense. There the picture gave 
 the musical idea, here the music inspired the 
 painter. The first of Dore's drawings repre- 
 sents Dante with Virgil at the entrance to the 
 infernal regions ; the other depicts the legend 
 of ' St. Frangois de Paule walking on the 
 waves.' 
 
 Dore spent an evening with the master, 
 and heard the symphony of Dante ; and the 
 master also played his ' Legend of St. Francois 
 de Paule,' which so inspired Dora's pencil that 
 he immortalised the impression he had re- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 101 
 
 ceived. He gave the two drawings to the 
 composer, not only as a pledge of friendship, 
 but at the same time to prove the affinity 
 between music and painting.^ 
 
 Another composition of Liszt's, ' The Ser- 
 mon to the Birds,' has been delightfully 
 rendered by the English painter, Smallfield.''^ 
 
 When Munkkcsy conceived the idea of 
 showing his picture ' The Death of Mozart ' 
 to his friends, while the ' Eequiem of Mozart ' 
 was being played as a sort of accompaniment, 
 the innovation was much discussed by the 
 press, but it received the master's fuU appro- 
 bation. 
 
 Last year, when I was present at a con- 
 
 ' These drawings were in the Liszt room at the Academy 
 of Music, and now helong to the Museum, 
 
 * One of Liszt's favourite pupils, Mr. "Walter Bache, first 
 wrote to him ahout Mr. Smallfield's picture. The master was 
 very fond of Mr. Bache, and thoroughly appreciated the work 
 he did, and continues to do, in England. Liszt often showed us 
 letters from him, and told us how persevering he was in his 
 endeavours to make Liszt's music popular in London. 
 
102 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 cert in the hall of San Kocco, at Venice, the 
 walls of which are covered with Tintoretto's 
 masterpieces, the impression produced by 
 these pictures in conjunction with the musi- 
 cal dehght, vividly brought back to me his 
 ideas on this subject. 
 
 Liszt repeated to us with singular per- 
 sistence that music was neglected by go- 
 vernments. ' The opera, the only musical 
 institution seriously and efficaciously subsi- 
 dised, in no way gives composers of other 
 kinds the necessary emulation. So their 
 works, together with their genius — if they 
 have any — remain in their portfohos, in the 
 face of the difficulties, often insurmountable, 
 they meet with in getting themselves heard. 
 " And without emulation there is no art," 
 says Schumann,' continued the master. ' The 
 philharmonic societies are insufficient, for 
 they must in their own interests cater to 
 public taste. From time to time they timidly 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 103 
 
 risk a novelty, and they never have the 
 courage to repeat it, if, at the first repre- 
 sentation, it does not succeed in taking the 
 audience. 
 
 ' Schumann used to get furious if it was 
 said, " This was a success ; this was not." 
 " Just as if the only important thing was to 
 please people ! "said he. And he was perfectly 
 right. I have struggled all my Hfe to educate 
 the pubhc taste in music. People generally 
 forget that many works, and often the best, 
 have to be thoroughly understood to be 
 appreciated. That is why, when I hear a 
 first performance, I always feel I am wit- 
 nessing a trial at the criminal court. If 
 governments, and the people who are in a 
 position to form them, encouraged the fine 
 arts without prejudice, if they distributed 
 their favours with more justice, they ought 
 to estabhsh orchestral concerts, to lend a 
 helping hand to young talent, in the same 
 
104 FRAN90IS LISZT 
 
 way as they purchase pictures and statues 
 for the museums and galleries. Of course, 
 scores cannot be bought, and shut up like 
 objects of art, for they do not appeal to the 
 eye ; but they can be made to speak, and 
 they can be given the opportunity of deve- 
 loping in Hfe and sunshine. In this respect, 
 music is the art which is worst treated of all. 
 The academies of music only help to ripen a 
 mass of talented people, more or less con- 
 spicuous, who are destined to an existence of 
 struggle, of vexation, and often of misery. 
 
 ' I did my best at Weimar,' said Liszt, ' as 
 long as I had an orchestra at my command, 
 to give a start to novelties ; but the efforts of 
 an individual cannot naturally be sufficient 
 for a world of strugglers, all eager for glory. 
 
 ' A subsidised musical society ought to 
 be founded in every country, whose object 
 should be to make it easy for composers, not 
 yet known, to have their works played. This 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 105 
 
 society could get recruits from the orchestra 
 of the opera (which would very much sim- 
 plify the thing), and the orchestra being 
 salaried by the munificence of the king or the 
 government, a portion of the receipts could 
 be given to the composers ; and this could 
 aU the more easily be done if they used the 
 picture galleries for concert halls. For in- 
 stance, sacred music is scarcely cultivated at 
 all, and it would take very little to make it 
 die of inanition. This is natural. With the 
 exception of a few well-known great works, 
 nothing is played, for no one dares to cele- 
 brate a new mass by an unknown author. 
 The questions of money, of clique, and of small 
 professional jealousies, lie in wait for rising 
 talent, hke so many wild beasts, ready to 
 annihilate it at a blow, and stifle its aspi- 
 rations by the hopelessness of a struggle 
 against discouraging indifference.' I only give 
 here but an epitome of a long conversation. 
 
106 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 The master's idea is not so new as it appears 
 to be. It had been in Liszt's mind all his 
 hfe. As he did not. succeed in realising it, 
 he leaves it to iis as a legacy, and one worthy 
 of the testator. He was anxious to make the 
 path easy for the neophyte in art, and he 
 was full of pity and sympathy for those 
 who struggled and swam bravely against the 
 stream. So he hoped that the future would 
 become the executor of this intellectual 
 legacy, of which the meaning would not be 
 understood until after it (the future) had 
 plucked the fruit which an emulation hke 
 this had ripened. 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 107 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Liszt, as we know, was as happy as he was 
 quick in repartee, and was even cutting, 
 when he thought it necessary. Chivalrous 
 though he was, and in spite of his courteous 
 manners, the artist in him always predomi- 
 nated over the man the moment he felt 
 that the dignity of the artist was attacked. 
 A want of respect or a sign of inattention 
 wounded him deeply ; nor could he bear 
 anyone to speak while he was playing. He 
 told us the following anecdotes on this sub- 
 ject : During a soiree at the court of St. 
 Petersburg, where he was always very well 
 received, it happened that the Czar Nicolas, 
 
108 PKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 who did not care much for music, began 
 talking with a lady, and, caring little for 
 Liszt's playing, talked very loud. All of a 
 sudden Liszt stopped dead, and went away 
 from the piano. The Czar was puzzled, and 
 approaching the master said to him : 
 ' Why have you stopped playing ? ' 
 ' When the Emperor speaks, one ought to 
 be silent,' was the Machiavelhan answer of 
 the wounded artist. He did the same thing 
 at the royal f^tes on the occasion of the 
 inauguration of the statue of Beethoven at 
 Bonn. Liszt was, so to speak, the actual 
 creator of this monument, having erected it 
 almost at his own expense, as he gave more 
 than 30,000 francs towards it. 
 
 The whole court assembled at the chS,teau 
 
 of X (I forget the name), not far from 
 
 Bonn ; there were also a great number of 
 illustrious guests ; and Liszt, together with 
 several celebrated artists, had promised to 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 109 
 
 help at the concert to be given in the evening. 
 The Queen of England, with her husband, 
 Prince Albert, was also at the castle ; but, 
 from what the courtiers said, ' the most sym- 
 pathetic sovereign in Europe,' as the master 
 called her, was not at all in a pleasant temper. 
 It is well known how passionately she loved 
 her husband, and how she never could get 
 used to the inferior rank of her adored con- 
 sort, when the inflexibihty of court etiquette 
 compelled her to notice it. She suffered 
 dreadfully at it, and, being young and passion- 
 ate, she was quite unable to hide her grievance. 
 On this occasion, also, fate had played her a 
 sorry trick when it brought on to the scenes 
 an Austrian archduke. Of course he took 
 precedence of Prince Albert, and this irritated 
 the young woman to such an extent that it 
 spoilt the whole entertainment for her. She 
 abused the ladies in waiting, she got an 
 ' attack of nerves,' and took a gloomy view 
 
110 FRAN90IS LISZT 
 
 of everytMng. The evening came, and the 
 concert began. Queen Victoria arrived rather 
 late, and did not appear to be herself at all, 
 Liszt was to play an ' Introduction,' but he 
 had scarcely seated himself at the piano before 
 the Queen complained of the heat, at which a 
 chamberlain ran to open a window. In two 
 minutes the Queen found the draught insup- 
 portable. Then the chamberlain hurried off 
 again and shut the window. This produced 
 a bustle and a going to and fro capable of 
 ruining the effect of the finest performance in 
 the world. When the ' Introduction ' was 
 finished, the master, instead of playing the 
 piece itself, got up, made a bow, and went 
 out into the park to smoke a cigar. When, 
 half an hour afterwards, he came back to the 
 hall, King Frederick William got up from his 
 place and said to him : 
 
 ' You ran away just now ; what was the 
 matter ? ' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 111 
 
 ' I was afraid,' replied liszt, ' of disturbing 
 her Majesty Queen Victoria, while she was 
 giving her orders.' 
 
 The king laughed heartily, and begged 
 him to continue his programme, which he 
 did in the midst of respectful silence, Queen 
 Victoria having left the hall shortly after his 
 disappearance. Even at the most brilliant 
 period of his career circumstances occasionally 
 compelled Liszt to recognise that the position 
 of artists in society, for whom he had so 
 much and so nobly fought, was in a certain 
 sense at the mercy of the public. Even he 
 himself fell foul of the ignorance and the 
 haughtiness of great people. The friend of 
 kings and princes sometimes found himself 
 treated like an ordinary musician. Thus, 
 Princess Mettemich, the wife of the celebrated 
 Metternich, asked him one day in Vienna, in 
 a drawing-room full of people : ' Is business 
 pretty good, doctor.?' 'It is only bankers 
 
112 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 and diplomatists who do good business,' re- 
 plied he. 
 
 Princess Metternich cordially disliked him, 
 out of spite, they say, because she never could 
 succeed in captivating him. The master de- 
 nied this, but with a sly smile, and he readily 
 related how they never met without sparring, 
 although there was always a seat for him at 
 the Prince's table, whom he saw a great deal 
 of, and always on a footing of friendship. He 
 happened to meet her once out walking, when 
 she received him with a volley of insults. 
 
 ' I never could put up with that sort of 
 thing,' said Liszt, becoming serious at the 
 recollection of her. ' I did not turn a deaf 
 ear to her, I can tell you, and, while we con- 
 versed, we used to say awful things to each 
 other. Shortly after this I went one day to 
 one of her receptions, and, as usual, went to 
 pay my respects to the mistress of the house, 
 who was queening it, surrounded by a brilliant 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 113 
 
 circle. She was rude enough not to acknow- 
 ledge my bow, and to ignore me as if I did 
 not exist. And more, she got up, took her 
 husband on one side, and asked him to have 
 me turned out. Everybody noticed this, but 
 of course nothing was done.' 
 
 Whilst Liszt was passing through Florence, 
 five or six years ago, he was invited to a 
 grand soiree, where they expected Lady 
 
 , a lady of very high rank, who was 
 
 as well known for her eccentricity as for her 
 wit. 
 
 She only received in the evening, slept all 
 day, and poured her afiection on a dozen dogs 
 who were always with her. She pretended 
 to be very curious to know Liszt. But the 
 
 hours passed, and Lady did not come. 
 
 They decided to send and say that they were 
 only waiting for her ladyship. At last she 
 appeared, and first of all she devoted all her 
 attention to a parrot, teasing it to her heart's 
 
 I 
 
114 FRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 content. Liszt was introduced to her, but 
 she did not take the slightest notice of him. 
 At supper she had a seat opposite to him ; she 
 looked him up and down several times, and 
 then went on talking with her neighbours. 
 All of a sudden, taking advantage of a pause 
 in the conversation, she questioned her vis-a- 
 vis in a clear and strident voice : 
 
 ' Can you tell me, Mr. Canon, what were 
 the names of the sons and daughters of Job ? ' 
 
 At these words a painful surprise could 
 be seen on the faces of all. But the master, 
 in no way embarrassed, drew himself up and 
 said : 
 
 'Madame, do you wish me to ska,te? I 
 assure you I am not a skater.' 
 
 History does not describe the lady's 
 abashed look, nor the covert smiles of the 
 guests. But we can well picture the situa- 
 tion. On another occasion, not long ago, 
 Liszt went to Goerz to pay a^ visit to the 
 
KECOLLBCTIONS 115 
 
 family of his old friend Baron A . He 
 
 was attached to Baron A by the ties of 
 
 an old friendship dating from his best days ; 
 he had spent months at his house in Hungary 
 with pupils, and sometimes without them. 
 After the baron's death he kept up his friendly 
 relations with the family, and never lost an 
 opportunity of showing his unalterable affec- 
 tion for them. In the evening, the news of 
 Liszt's arrival having got about, several people 
 came to the A s', anxious to take advan- 
 tage of the windfall. Among others came a 
 
 certain Count C , an oldish man of a very 
 
 good Austrian family. Whilst tea was being 
 
 served, Count C , who had not yet spoken 
 
 to Liszt, asked him this subhme question : 
 ' Who was your music-master, Mr. Canon ? ' 
 Liszt looked at his questioner with patri- 
 archal good-humour. 
 
 ' I don't remember, sir,' he rephed. ' How- 
 ever, you are losing nothing, it is a matter of 
 
 I 2 
 
116 FRAKpOIS LISZT 
 
 little importance now ; ' and he went on talking 
 with, his neighbours. 
 
 What a pity that Flaubert, while strug- 
 gling against human stupidity in general, and 
 the stupidity of the bourgeois in particular, 
 had not the opportunity of recording this 
 wonderful reply — a reply which would have 
 proved to him, once more, that at times 
 the heir to a great name can very well com- 
 pete in stupidity with his much-persecuted 
 bourgeois ! 
 
 Liszt was very well received by the im- 
 perial family of Kussia. For more than 
 forty years, his stay in St. Petersburg was 
 nothing but a series of delights. He was 
 feted and worshipped on all sides, and people 
 quarrelled over his favours. His first con- 
 cert at St. Petersburg brought him in 10,000 
 roubles, which was considered a fabulous 
 sum in those days. When he Avent to the 
 opera the crowd was so great that the police 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 117 
 
 had to be employed to make room for his 
 carriage. 
 
 'I was very happy at St. Petersburg,' 
 said the master. 'It was a season of care- 
 lessness and ease, such as I have rarely 
 known since. Everything went well. I was 
 favourably looked upon by the court, until I 
 spoilt everything.' 
 
 In what way he had succeeded in ' spoil- 
 ing everything ' is a page in his life which 
 now I dare not open. 
 
 For all that, he left a pleasant recollection 
 of himself on the banks of the Neva. And 
 the proof of it is given by a letter from the 
 Grand Duke Constantin which he received 
 last winter. For a long time, nothing had 
 given the master so much pleasure. He him- 
 self brought me a copy of it, which is as 
 follows :— r 
 
 ' Dear Mastee, — The pleasant news, 
 
118 FRAlfgOIS LISZT 
 
 brought to us by Madame Menter, that you 
 may possibly come to St. Petersburg, has 
 filled me with joy. I take the liberty, there- 
 fore, of engaging you to be good enough to 
 be present at the musical fete proposed to be 
 given during this winter in your honour, and 
 in aid of our Academy of Music. 
 
 ' I hope that you yourself will feel some 
 pleasure in revisiting our capital, after an 
 absence of more than forty years. 
 
 ' It would be unnecessary to add that the 
 presence of the eminent musical genius who 
 is revered by all would add powerfully to the 
 brilliancy of the proposed fete as well as to 
 the satisfaction of 
 
 ' Your zealous admirer, 
 
 ' Constants. 
 
 ' St. Petersburg, 4tli Dec, 1885.' 
 
 A propos of the princes of the Eomanof 
 family, of these magnificent men of a rare 
 
RECOLLECTIOIs'S 1]9 
 
 type of perfection, I asked him one day 
 what sort of people they were. We hap- 
 pened to be at a grand dinner, and Liszt was 
 sitting next to me. At first he did not reply, 
 but, a quarter of an hour after, he took my 
 hand in that affectionate and amiable way of 
 his, and said : 
 
 ' Do you know, dear child, there is the 
 white, there is the black, there is the good, 
 there is the bad, and then — there are the 
 princes ! ' 
 
120 FRAN901^ '^ISZT 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 One evening the master brought me an article 
 on George Ehot which had just been pub- 
 hshed in the ' Journal des Debats.' I read it 
 to him, and the article was fortunate enough 
 to start him on his reminiscences. 
 
 ' I knew George Ehot and her husband 
 very well,' said he ; ' and they were a remark- 
 ably ugly couple. Mr. Lewis, the author of 
 " The Life of Goethe," called on me first, alone, 
 telling me, in the course of conversation, that 
 he was at Weimar, with Miss Evans, the 
 translator of " The Life of Jesus," by Strauss ; 
 but that he did not know whether he could 
 present himself with her, as they were living 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 121 
 
 together in a manner inadmissible in society. 
 I gave him to understand that I cared very 
 little whether people's relations were regular 
 or not, and though people said " shocking" 
 in Weimar, as they did elsewhere, I gave 
 them a hearty welcome and invited them to 
 come and dine with me. Princess de Witt- 
 genstein, who had long preferred to interest 
 herself in religious and philosophical ques- 
 tions, took a great interest in Miss Evans, and 
 got on capitally with her. Ugly though she 
 was. Miss Evans had a charm, and knew how 
 to captivate those around her. At times her 
 way of Ustening reminded me of Madame 
 Sand. She seemed to absorb like a sponge 
 everything she saw and heard. Her long, ill- 
 favoured face put on an expression of atten- 
 tion so rapt that it became positively inter- 
 esting. But Madame Sand was composed 
 while listening, and she made one more elo- 
 quent ; Miss Evans, on the other hand, seemed 
 
122 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 to be jealous of what one said, and put one 
 on one's guard. I have always noticed that 
 the men, in these sort of " irregular posi- 
 tions," are the more uncomfortable. Mr. Lewis 
 visibly suffered under it, especially when he 
 had to introduce Miss Evans ; she, on the con- 
 trary, walked with her head erect. She had 
 plenty of ease of manner, and, in fact, was 
 not too English in her views and opinions. 
 Mr. Lewis was a very able man. One day 
 when I came in I found Mr. Lewis's card, and 
 those of three other Englishmen. When I 
 met him shortly afterwards, I said to him : 
 ' " There are some of your countrymen 
 here, I see." 
 
 ' " Mine ? Not that I know of ! " 
 ' " But I found your card at my house to- 
 gether with three others with English names 
 on them." Mr. Lewis laughed. " They are 
 all myself, only myself," said he. " Those are 
 my three noms de plwme under which I work 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 123 
 
 at different brandies of literature. It is a 
 little plan by means of which, in my opinion, 
 I secure to myself the attention of four 
 different groups of the pubhc. It suits me 
 very well, and it appears to suit the public 
 also."' 
 
 After her departure from Weimar, the 
 master never saw George Eliot again, who 
 afterwards became justly celebrated. But I 
 had the pleasure of procuring him a moment 
 of satisfaction by making known to him the 
 upshot of his kind treatment of this 'irregular 
 couple.' While reading the ' Life of George 
 Ehot,' compiled from her letters, and diaries 
 by her second husband, Mr. Cross, I came 
 across the following pages, which put into 
 relief, so to speak, the master's reminiscences 
 of her. I read them to him, and he was 
 delighted to find himself so well spoken of by 
 the celebrated writer. George Ehot writes 
 thus : 
 
124 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 ' Weimar, August-October, 1854. 
 
 ' Towards the middle of September, at the 
 commencement of the theatre season, we went 
 to see " Hernani." Liszt was splendid as con- 
 ductor of the orchestra. The fine lines of his 
 profile and his flowing hair stood out in a mar- 
 vellous way against the foot-lights.' 
 
 Further on she says : 
 
 ' Liszt's conversation is delightful. I 
 know nobody who can tell a story so well. 
 The evening before last, when he came to see 
 us, he expressed to us the pleasure which an 
 article written about him by Lewis had given 
 him. He talked charmingly while relating to 
 us an anecdote about Spontini and Berlioz. 
 Spontini came to Paris while the master was 
 there, and he used to greatly frequent the 
 opera. He was a stiff, self-sufficient person, 
 who was always visibly swelling with inapor- 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 125 
 
 tance. Liszt pulled up his collar and carried 
 his head high in order to give us as graphic 
 an idea of the man as possible. Everybody- 
 was glad to be able to avoid Spontini. Else- 
 where " people pretended to think he was 
 dead," said IJszt, " but in Paris, as he was a 
 member of the Institute, one could not help 
 admitting his existence." Liszt met him often 
 at Erard'g. Once, by chance, Liszt pointed 
 out to him that Berhoz very much admired 
 his talent, whereupon Spontini angrily 
 attacked Berhoz, and maintained that he and 
 those hke him were working the ruin of art. 
 Shortly afterwards " The Vest^al " was pro- 
 duced, and Berhoz wrote an enthusiastic 
 article on the music of Spontini. 
 
 ' The next time Liszt met " the man with 
 the collar," he said to him, " You see I was 
 right when I told you that Berlioz was a 
 fervent admirer of your Muse." 
 
 ' Spontini puffed himself out more than 
 
126 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 usual even with him, and rephed in a tone 
 of conviction, " M. BerHoz has talent as a 
 critic ! " 
 
 ' Liszt's replies were always characteristic, 
 and were never wanting in point. Speaking of 
 Madame d'Agoult, he told us how, when her 
 novel " Nelida " appeared, in which Liszt him- 
 self is put in the pillory, as if no better than a 
 thief, he asked her : 
 
 ' " Why have you been so hard on that 
 poor Lehmann ? " 
 
 ' The first time we were invited to break- 
 fast with him at the " Altenburg," we were 
 ushered into a garden, where, in a leafy hall 
 made by interlacing trees, breakfast was 
 served. 
 
 ' We met there Hofiman de Fallersleben,the 
 lyric poet. Dr. Schade, a scholar, and Corne- 
 lius, Later on came a German musician, Mr. 
 Eaff, who has just published a volume on 
 " Wagnerfrage." Shortly after, Liszt himself 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 127 
 
 came with Princess Mary, a charming young 
 girl of sixteen. Then came Princess Carohne 
 of Sayn-Wittgenstein ^ with her nephew 
 Prince Eugene, and finally a young French 
 artist, a pupil of Scheffer. 
 
 ' The princess, dressed in perfect taste, 
 wore an indoor costume made of some white 
 material, shghtly transparent, with a long 
 train, and lined with orange-coloured silk to 
 match the cufi*s. A black lace mantle and 
 little coquettish hat on the top of her head 
 completed her graceful toilette. When the 
 cigars had gone round, HojQTman was asked to 
 read some verses, and he recited a baccliana- 
 lian poem to us with much spirit. I was sit- 
 ting near Liszt, and, to my great delight, I 
 
 ' The Princess of Wittgenstein had abandoned lier home to 
 establish herself with Liszt at Weimar. It was then that the 
 Duke of Weimar placed the ' Altenburg ' at the disposition of 
 the master. This exceptional woman, who was neither hand- 
 some nor good-looking, but who had a superior intellect, exer- 
 cised a wonderful influence over the development and the 
 direction taken by the creative genius of Liszt. 
 
128 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 was able to watcli the play of his features. 
 I saw reflected on that face, lit as it was by a 
 ray from on high, gentleness, genius, tender- 
 ness, and benevolence ; an expression in per- 
 fect harmony with his ways. At last came 
 the time when my secret wishes would be 
 granted. Liszt played. For the first time 
 in my life I witnessed a real inspiration! 
 Por the first time I heard the real voice of 
 the piano. He played one of his own compo- 
 sitions, a religious fantasie. There was no- 
 thing strange or immoderate in his attitude. 
 He handled the instrument with ease and 
 quietness. His lips were closed, his head a 
 little thrown back, and his face looked simply 
 sublime. When the music expressed rapture, 
 a sweet smUe wandered over his lips, like a 
 sunbeam on the water. When triumph was 
 the key-note, his nostrils distended and a 
 heavenly light seemed to play on his features. 
 Nothing small or artificial came to spoil the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 129 
 
 picture. Why didn't Ary Scheffer paint him 
 at such a time, instead of representing him in 
 the form of one of the three magi ? And yet 
 Scheffer's picture is a grand conception. 
 
 'In this picture we see the two old men 
 who have passed their hfe in trying to read 
 in the skies the destiny of the world, and who 
 are gazing at it, seeking the star which will 
 herald the coming of the Saviour ! Their 
 young servant, with the fresh inspiration 
 which is the privilege of youth in its flower, 
 is the first to see the predestined star, and his 
 rapture reveals its approach to his com- 
 panions. Scheffer has given in this young 
 magus a portrait of Liszt ; but here even, 
 where he could have unreservedly ideahsed, 
 he has in no way done justice to the original. 
 Another odd thing is that one comes across 
 Liszt's type in all Schefier's pictures. 
 
 ' In a little room which leads to the end of 
 the apartments of the " Altenburg," there is 
 
 K 
 
130 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 still a portrait of liszt by Scheffer, the one 
 of which the engravings are so well known. 
 This little room is full of souvenirs which 
 recall the triumphs with which this divine 
 talent was ever greeted. The Princess of 
 Wittgenstein, assisted by the d'Arnims, organ- 
 ised this museum in honour of the anniver- 
 sary of the master's birthday.^ 
 
 ' There are there a medallion by Schwan- 
 thaler, another by Eietschl (this is a very 
 
 ^ Since the recent death, of the Princess of Wittgenstein 
 the Duke of Weimar has taken the initiative in founding a 
 Liszt museum in his apartments at Weimar ; and we hear it 
 is nearly ready. It contains a collection of letters and auto- 
 graphs of rare interest, and the greater part of the valuable 
 presents given to Liszt during his long and brilliant life. The 
 master's study and bedroom are reverently left untouched, and 
 the dining-room has been converted into a museum. A dona- 
 t.on, at Liszt's particular request, of an interesting portion of 
 these trophies has been made to the National Museum of Buda- 
 Peath. These objects, many of which are of historical interest, 
 were for years in the keeping of the Princess at Rome ; among 
 others, the sword of honour presented to Liszt at Buda-Pesth 
 by the Hungarian nobles in 1871, and which was satirised 
 with so much humour and malignity by Heine in one of his 
 poems. 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 131 
 
 beautiful one^), and a bust by an Italian 
 artist. The walls are studded with cabinets 
 
 ^ I add the names of several other artists who have immor- 
 talised ' that profile of ivory.' They are, first of all, Ingres, 
 who was a friend of Liszt, and of whom he always had a tender 
 recollection ; in his hest days it was Kaulhach and Lenhach. 
 William de Kaulbach's portrait is celebrated for the grand look ; 
 the chivalrous and fine-gentleman character of the artist is ex- 
 pressed in it in a masterly way. Not less remarkable is a marble 
 bust by the famous Bartolini, souvenir of the master's visit to 
 Florence in 1838. The painter Leyraud shows us Liszt at the 
 time when he took orders. He depicts him as a thin, thought- 
 ful man, leaning against a piano, his arms crossed, and looking 
 at the w.orld from the height of his wisdom. Angers has made 
 a very fine medallion of him. We have several portraits by 
 Kriehuber, one, among others — ' Liszt, in a travelling cloak ' * — 
 drawn hurriedly while Liszt, surrounded by friends seeing him 
 ofij was shaking hands all round. Tilgner sculptured a bust 
 of him two years ago at Vienna ; and Baron Joukovszky (of 
 whom we will speak anon) painted his portrait five years ago. 
 This year our great Munkacsy, who beautified the last moments 
 of the master's life, painted him seated at the piano. Boehm 
 the celebrated Hungarian sculptor, has just made his bust in 
 London. Then we have at Pesth, at the entrance to the 
 Opera House, a splendid statue, chiselled by our young arti)t 
 Strobl. It wants finish, but on the other hand admirably 
 renders Liszt's features and expression. And lastly, we ha Mi 
 
 * This picture reminds one of the celebrated portrait of 
 young Goethe skating, wrapped in his mother's large red 
 velvet cloak. 
 
132 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 containing jewels and precious gifts from the 
 great ones of this earth. 
 
 ' In the music-room are the pianos of 
 Beethoven and Mozart.' 
 
 These reunions at the Altenburg have 
 left never-to-be-forgotten recollections on the 
 minds of all who had the happiness to be 
 invited. Liszt's hospitality was princely. 
 Breakfasts, dinners, soirees followed each 
 other daily, and every celebrity in Europe 
 flocked there. 
 
 Mr. George Lichtenstein, a talented pianist 
 and composer, and a fellow-countryman of 
 the master, visited Weimar on the occasion 
 of the fetes in commemoration of Goethe and 
 Schiller, and being an old acquaintance of 
 Liszt's was often invited to the Altenburg. 
 Many years afterwards, he never tired of 
 
 a joke, a portrait, painted from memory, by the witty Russian 
 artist, Wolkof, on the stove of a friend of Liszt's, the pretty 
 
 and charming young -widow, Mrs. A , a clever portrait 
 
 which amused Liszt immensely. 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 133 
 
 describing to us this luxurious home where 
 simplicity of manners and general freedom 
 created a truly artistic surrounding, and 
 where every individuality could be sure of 
 unfettered expansion. 
 
 What has never been sufficiently recog- 
 nised and admired is the universal character 
 of Liszt's mind. This made Eubinstein say of 
 him : ' Let us never put anybody on a parallel 
 with Liszt, either as pianist or as musician, 
 and least of all as man, for Liszt is more than 
 all that — Liszt is an Idea ! ' This ' univer- 
 sality ' was the powerful magnet which, during 
 sixty years, drew towards him all those who 
 gravitated towards intellectual centres. 
 
 One evening (Mr. Lichtenstein told us) 
 Herbeck, the famous organist of Vienna, came, 
 with a quatugr manuscript for piano and 
 violins, a composition of his own, which he 
 had promised to have performed. But he 
 excused himself by showing the work, which 
 
134 FRAN90IS LISZT 
 
 was almost illegible from corrections and 
 erasures. Liszt took the portfolio and looked 
 over it. 
 
 ' If you'll allow me, I'll try it,' said he to 
 Herbeck, seating himself at the piano. He 
 played it with as much fire and accuracy of 
 execution as if he himself had been the 
 author of this complicated and almost un- 
 readable work, which he then saw for the 
 first time. There were a hundred people in 
 the two rooms — European musical celebrities, 
 literary men, diplomatists. Prince Piickler- 
 Muskau among others — and everybody was 
 amazed at this surprising feat. 
 
 At this time Taussig was Liszt's favourite 
 pupil. He loved to praise and show off this 
 boy of sixteen, who positively frightened his 
 audience by his excessive impetuosity and 
 his unpardonable abuse of the pedal. 
 
 ' And do you really call that grand play- 
 ing ? ' said Lichtenstein to Liszt. 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 135 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' replied the maestro. ' You can 
 take my word for it. He does not know 
 himself yet, and is carried away by the force 
 of his inspirations ; but when the chaos 
 clears, and he is master of his strength, he 
 wiU be great ! ' 
 
 Taussig brilliantly fulfilled Liszt's prophecy, 
 and he never ceased regretting his premature 
 decease. He saw in' the talent of Taussig a 
 spark of that ' elementary force ' which had 
 made of Paganini a unique artist, and which 
 gave to his own playing an intensity whose 
 fascinating power never grew less. 
 
136 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 In reading over Flaubert's letters, I came 
 across the one in which the author offered 
 some thousands of francs to George Sand, to 
 enable her to take a trip to the South of 
 France in order to get rid of an illness she 
 was suffering from. I told Liszt of this, and 
 expressed my surprise that, after such a hard- 
 working life as hers, the author of ' Mauprat' 
 should be reduced to live from hand to mouth, 
 as indeed she states openly enough in her 
 correspondence. 
 
 'AH the same she would never have ac- 
 cepted Flaubert's offer,' said the master, in a 
 tone of conviction. ' She was much too inde- 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 137 
 
 pendent for that. She made lots of money, 
 but then there were many heavy calls on her 
 purse. She was not careful in choosing her 
 society, and there were lots of rogues who 
 could boast of having got the best of her. 
 Madame Sand gave lavishly, and accepted 
 nothing. In this respect, as in many others, 
 she was more manly than " her male friends " 
 whom it pleased her to fleece in other ways. 
 .' Madame Sand,' he continued, ' caught her 
 butterfly and tamed it in her box by giving 
 it grass and flowers — this was the love period. 
 Then she stuck her pin into it when it 
 struggled — this was the conge, and it always 
 came from her. Afterwards she vivisected it, 
 stufied it, and added it to her collection of 
 heroes for novels. It was this traffic of souls 
 which had given themselves up unreservedly 
 to her which, eventually, disgusted me with 
 her friendship. Madame d'Agoult used strong 
 expressions when speaking of George Sand's 
 
138 FEANgOlS LISZT 
 
 heroes, and when she had the chance she did 
 the same thing. For all that, George Sand 
 was really very good company ; and if one 
 forgot she was a woman — a thing I rarely care 
 to do — and if one closed one's eyes to her 
 " maternal" proclivities — a funny term, coined 
 to express her own disenchantment — one could 
 admire her, and even passionately attach one- 
 self to her. Formerly I had reason to be 
 satisfied with her, and I owe her much. . . . 
 From an artistic point of view, the halting- 
 places at Nohant were highly interesting, but 
 there I only played second fiddle ! 
 
 ' George Sand's glory,' added Liszt, ' caused 
 Madame d'Agoult many tears. She couldn't 
 sleep at the thought of it, and Daniel Stern 
 would never have existed if George Sand had 
 not been .... and it would have been a pity !'^ 
 
 ' It will be noticed by the abrupt style of my diction that 
 I am leaving out those things which I believe to be of a nature 
 better left unpublished at present. I would rather not sub- 
 stitute my style for Liszt's, so I prefer to leave inartistic gaps. 
 
KBCOLLECTIONS 139 
 
 liszt particularly admired the facility witli 
 which George Sand worked. The manuscripts 
 of even her most philosophical works show 
 hardly any trace of corrections. 
 
 ' Her pen ran over her paper with a con- 
 tinuous buzz, which has often thrown me into 
 curious reveries,' said the master. ' She made 
 use of everything to find copy. I have found 
 in her pages a number of our discussions of 
 which she was able to make use better than 
 anybody else. Subjects crowded each other 
 so thickly in her fertUe brain that, if she hap- 
 pened to finish a novel at two in the morning, 
 she began another without a break, as she 
 would work until three, which was her usual 
 hour. At difierent times the conversation of 
 the evening, or the music she had heard, sug- 
 gested an idea to her, and the next morning 
 she read to us what she had written that 
 night right off without stopping.' 
 
 On another occasion Liszt amused us by 
 
140 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 relating to us the exploits of the ' Muse ' — a 
 name given at one time by young romantic 
 France to Madame Louise Collet — exploits 
 which Arsene Houssaye has just pitilessly 
 published in his ' Memoirs,' with all their 
 serio-comic surroundings. 
 
 I will not repeat things well known, 
 but I will hurry on to an incident, desig- 
 nated by the master as the only one of 
 its kind he had ever come across in his 
 life. It is about the French Byron, about 
 Alfred de Musset. Liszt and Musset were, 
 within a year, the same age. They formerly 
 knew each other very well, at the time when 
 the French romantic school, supported by 
 immortal names, was in full bloom. But the 
 stream of life, so impetuous and so rapid for 
 Liszt, had separated them, and they were both 
 getting grey, when by accident they found 
 themselves face to face. 
 
 ' It was ages since I had seen Alfred de 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 141 
 
 Musset,' said the master to us, ' when one day, 
 as I was. passing through Paris, I ran against 
 him in the Boulevard des Capucines. They 
 spoke of his election to the Academy. The 
 " immortal " in expectation scarcely recognised 
 me, though my features were not so much 
 changed. I took his arm, and saw with pain 
 how much the charming fellow had aged. 
 His eyes were duU, his walk feeble, and he 
 only answered me in monosyllables. I took 
 him to my house, where he let himself fall 
 heavily on a couch. 
 
 ' " Give me something to drink ! " said he. 
 
 ' I poured him out a glass of claret. 
 
 ' " You are stiU satisfied with mUk, it 
 appears," he remarked, and I saw in his eyes 
 a ghmmer of understanding. I poured him 
 out a second glass, and, httle by little, the 
 generous juice of the grape worked in him a 
 transformation. 
 
 '"Play something to me," was his next 
 
142 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 remark ; " it is a long time since I heard you 
 play." 
 
 ' I went to the piano. I was heart-broken. 
 To think I had known this butterfly intoxi- 
 cated with the very joy of living, this hand- 
 some and refined young man who was petted 
 by duchesses and spoUt by all Paris — and then 
 to find him in such a condition ! You know I 
 am not sentimental, but I too was once young, 
 and . . . Well, I played ; I let my impres- 
 sions take possession of me. I almost forgot 
 my audience in the rush of conflicting visions 
 which came over me. ... I don't know what 
 awoke me from my reveries. There was a 
 deadly sUence. I looked round, and saw 
 Musset on his back, as pale as death, in a dead 
 faint. I sent for my mother, and with her 
 help I brought him back to life again. Then 
 when he opened his eyes a terrible crisis must 
 have taken place within him. He strode up 
 and down the room. Forgetting the past 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 143 
 
 years, he implored me to reconcile him with 
 his fickle Circe, in no way remembering that 
 Madame d'Agoult had succeeded in estranging 
 me from George Sand. The fire of his volup- 
 tuous reminiscences revealed an amazing 
 vitality of memory ; he again became young, 
 handsome, and fascinating ; and the eloquence 
 and passionate accents he employed to make 
 me understand what a void and ruin this 
 woman had made of his life were the most 
 heart-rending things I ever heard. You would 
 say I was melodramatic were I to be capable 
 of repeating what he did and said, yet I 
 assure you that the contemplation of these 
 spectres of love made one feel uncomfortable. 
 He ended by throwing his arms round me, 
 complaining of the persecutions of Louise 
 Collet, confusing the true with the false, the 
 past with the present, in so hfelike and even 
 terrible a manner that I scarcely knew what 
 to think. He gave vent to expressions fuU of 
 
144 PBANyOlS LISZT 
 
 a fire I have never seen in his works ; he 
 declared he dreamt them while I played. 
 Eventually I decided to go to the piano 
 again, thinking in that way to calm down 
 his feverish excitement ; but it was no use. 
 The more I played, the more he went over 
 the old ground, cursing his weakness in not 
 leaving this world in his spring-time. 
 
 ' " I shall get old, and I detest old age," 
 he repeated. " To die, and to die young — 
 what happiness ! " 
 
 ' I do not think he was wrong,' continued 
 Liszt. ' He was not meant for the shade or 
 the realities of hfe. I sent for a cab, and 
 asked him where he would like to be taken 
 to. Then he got confused for a minute, and 
 asked me to drop him in the Eue Bac, which 
 I did. 
 
 ' After he got out of the cab, I told the 
 driver where to go, and shortly afterwards, at 
 a corner of a neighbouring street, I saw him 
 
Recollections 145 
 
 just when he was furtively stealing into a low 
 public-house. 
 
 'You may be sure I did not brag about 
 this adventure. It seemed like sacrilege to 
 me when I thought of the genius of the 
 unhappy poet ! • 
 
146 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 At times, especially during the last years of 
 his life, a certain note of melancholy found 
 its way into' the reminiscences of the master. 
 He loved to lay stress on the chances he had 
 missed, on the grand opportunities which he 
 had spoilt for himself. He accentuated this 
 idea with wonderful frankness and candour 
 one evening when he was speaking of Madame 
 Duplessis. 
 
 In 1849 Liszt went to Paris on business. 
 He wished to see Jules Janin, and going to 
 his house one evening they told him he was 
 at the Ambigu Theatre at a first night. Liszt 
 went there, and during an entr'acte, while he 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 147 
 
 was walking with him in the foyer, a very con- 
 spicuous young woman passed and stared at 
 him a good deal, upon which Janin said to him : 
 
 ' She has taken a fancy to you. Do you 
 know her ? ' 
 
 ''No. Who is she ? ' said Liszt. 
 
 ' That's Madame Duplessis. You'll see she 
 will take possession of you.' 
 
 ' What an idea ! ' replied the young artist, 
 who all the same was rather puzzled at the 
 young woman's attention. 
 
 The next day a friend of Madame Du- 
 plessis came and offered to take Liszt to the 
 house of the ' fashionable beauty.' She was 
 not yet the ' Dame aux Camelias.' This 
 episode did not occur tiU later. Liszt found 
 himself in very good company, and all the 
 best people of Paris were there — the Duke 
 of Ossuna, authors, the first artists, &c. He 
 went there often after this. She wanted to go 
 to Weimar with him ; ' but I pointed out that 
 
148 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 there would be certain inconveniences,' said 
 Liszt, ' and gave her to understand she would 
 not like it.' She thought otherwise, as she 
 had never had time to get bored, since she 
 never got up till two, took two or three hours' 
 drive in the Bois, and then went to the theatre. 
 That was her life. They ended by making 
 arrangements to meet the following year at 
 Pesth, whence they would go together to 
 Constantinople. Liszt departed, and sixteen 
 months after he heard of Marie Duplessis' 
 death. She was consumptive at the time of 
 their friendship. Liszt found her very taking, 
 very witty, and full of childish abandon. 
 
 ' I am not partial as a rule to Marions de 
 Lorme or Manons Lescaut,' said the master. 
 
 ' That's because you never knew that 
 sort,' slyly interpolated my sister. 
 
 'But Marie Duplessis was an exception,' 
 continued Liszt, without getting the least 
 disconcerted. ' She had a good heart, per- 
 
EECOLLKCTIONS 149 
 
 fectly ideal good spirits, and I maintain that 
 she was unique in her kind. Dumas tho- 
 roughly understood her, and he had little 
 trouble in creating her again. It was cer- 
 tainly the most perfect incarnation of woman 
 which has ever existed. The trip to Con- 
 stantinople, the prospect of which delighted 
 her, is one of those halting-places which I 
 have always regretted.' 
 
 If Marie Duplessis had gone, as she wished 
 to do, to Weimar with the master, we should 
 perhaps have lost a masterpiece, viz. 'La Dame 
 aux Camehas.' Liszt only met Dumas once 
 at Madame Duplessis'. It was only in the 
 sequel that Dumas became the real Duval, 
 which besides is a well-known fact. 
 
 But what really is curious is the fact that 
 several people claim this doubtful and sepul- 
 chral honour. Among others, Count Kosz- 
 tyelszky did so. He was a charming and 
 clever man, who had led a wild life, and 
 
150 FEANfOIS LISZT 
 
 was better known under the name of Sefer 
 Pacha, friend of the ex-Khedive Ismail. He 
 also claims to have been the hero of the 
 ' Dame aux Camelias,' and I dare not affirm 
 that he has not as much right to the title as 
 Dumas. In any case (and I can speak of 
 this with authority, having seen it with my 
 own eyes), at his splendid castle of Berthold- 
 stein, near Gleichenberg, there is a collection 
 of delightful portraits, all representing the 
 same ideally pretty woman, whom the happy 
 possessor calls Marie Duplessis. 
 
 The same touch of melancholy runs 
 through the following little story, but it has a 
 sweeter and more transcendent fragrance, and 
 its mingled impressions produce the effect of 
 a half-effaced pastel. I ought to mention 
 here that Liszt was impenetrable, and dis- 
 cretion itself, in all matters connected with 
 women who had not with their own hands 
 torn away the veil from their heart and 
 
EECOLLECTIOKS 151 
 
 offered it to the world's inspection. The 
 story in question is the only one of its kind 
 he ever related to me, and even then it would 
 never have been revealed to me were it 
 not that the heroine had, for many years, 
 been beyond the reach of earthly harm. 
 
 From 1857 to 1859 the situation at Weimar 
 changed greatly. At the theatre the drama 
 had got the upper hand of the opera ; the 
 school of painting was the petted child of the 
 court ; and, little by httle, a hostile camp was 
 formed, which thwarted everything inaugu- 
 rated by Liszt. When an opera, ' The Barber 
 of Seville,' the work of Peter Cornelius, a 
 pupU of the master's, proved a failure, in 
 consequence of plots formed principally 
 against Liszt, he thought the time had come 
 for sending in his resignation. 
 
 ' Cornehus had committed the imprudence 
 of hoisting my colours as composer,' said the 
 master, ' and it was an act of untimely 
 
152 FBANgOIS LISZT 
 
 boldness.^ I warned him of this beforehand, 
 and if his " Barber " had discovered the secret 
 of making hair grow on bald heads, he would 
 have succeeded better than by singing his 
 initiatory song a la Liszt. I have never beeii 
 good for anything but to mark out the way 
 for others, and even at that I was no longer 
 successful.' 
 
 The master, therefore, was not exactly in 
 the best of tempers, so he went off to Paris 
 ' to strengthen himself at his mother's, whom 
 he loved above everything, and whom he 
 visited almost every year. From Paris he 
 went to Silesia, to Prince Hohenzollern- 
 Hechingen, where he stayed nearly a year. 
 Liszt loved to evoke the visions of the past, 
 and to look back on the sumptuous surround- 
 ings in the midst of which he had lived. 
 
 ' I will come back to the pessimist opinion of Liszt, and to 
 ■what was said of the popularity of hia works, of his school, 
 and of his tendencies. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 153 
 
 Then he used to dazzle us with descriptions 
 which a novel-writer might have envied. 
 
 How well he put before us the fashionable 
 coming and going at Trachenberg, the abode 
 of the Princes of Hatzfeld, with its guests 
 counted by the hundreds, with its stables of 
 sixty English horses, its five cooks at work 
 night and day, its fetes, its promenades, and 
 its continuaal concerts ! this sunlit and per- 
 fumed atmosphere, where art and wit impreg- 
 nated the air, and made hearts and nerves 
 tingle with excitement and pleasure. 
 
 The time he passed at Loewenberg with 
 Prince HohenzoUern-Hechingen had also left 
 charming recollections ; more serious ones 
 these, perhaps, on account of the direction 
 more and more marked which his mind 
 began to take — a direction which led him first 
 to the solitude of Monte Mario, and from 
 there into the arms of the Church. They lived 
 in great style at Loewenberg, and the stars 
 
154. PEANfOIS LISZT 
 
 came tliere, as elsewhere, in search of their 
 sun. Naturally also romance came to start 
 him again ; that romance which clung to him 
 like a shadow, and gave to him that fantastic 
 renown which he could not get rid of, even 
 by taking orders. 
 
 We were talking of women, and Liszt 
 declared they were a curious study — a study 
 to begin step by step, without any possible 
 progress ; and in which experience gained 
 by anterior studies only helps to warp the 
 judgment. Women are the ones for doing 
 things on the spur of the moment. Man, 
 born as he is to battle with life, will never 
 have that supreme contempt for danger 
 which you will find in a young woman in 
 love. 
 
 ' I was at work one morning at Loewen- 
 berg,' continued Liszt, 'when a card was 
 brought to me, Avith a man's name on it 
 which conveyed nothing to me. Then I saw 
 
KECOLLECTICKS 155 
 
 a handsome young Englishman come in, whom 
 I seemed to recognise. The young man came 
 nearer, as I tried to remember who he was ; 
 then he spoke, and I at once recognised that 
 voice with its unmistakable tone. . . . My 
 arms dropped with amazement. 
 
 ' " What are you doing here ? Have you 
 run away ? Have you left your husband ? " I 
 asked, distressed at seeing her, and wondering 
 what it meant. 
 
 ' She had thrown herself on a couch in a 
 fit of laughter. 
 
 ' "This is a nice reception, I must confess. 
 It is well .worth the risk I am running," she 
 said. 
 
 ' " But you will ruin yourself ! " I cried, 
 fearing at every moment to see somebody 
 come in. She ran to the piano and played a 
 ritournelle. 
 
 "'I am your pupil, am I not ? It's as 
 plain as a pikestaff." ' 
 
156 FRANpOIS LISZT 
 
 ' Then she dashed off a roulade, which 
 seemed to raise the roof, to such an extent 
 did she fill the room with sound. 
 
 ' " For God's sake, stop ! The house is full 
 of guests. Somebody will come, and you will 
 be recognised ! " 
 
 ' " What ! Henri d'Anglay," replied she, 
 twisting up an imaginary moustache. " Well ! 
 I congratulate them if they recognise him. 
 They must have seen worse-looking fellows 
 than I ! " 
 
 ' " Come, now, a truce to this childishness," 
 replied I, thoroughly alarmed, " and tell me 
 what brings you here ? " 
 
 ' She was,' continued Liszt, ' a singer of 
 European celebrity and spotless reputation.' 
 
 ' Malibran ! ' cried I, curious to know who 
 she was. 
 
 ' What an idea ! she was already dead 
 then ! ' replied the master. 
 
 ' Jenny Lind, then ? ' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 157 
 
 'More dead still, since I never had the 
 happiness of her particular favours,' replied 
 the master in an irritated voice which cut 
 short my interruption. 
 
 'My particular heroine vras watched not 
 only by a jealous husband who in no way 
 deserved to own such a star, but also by a 
 mad lunatic admirer, the laughingstock of 
 the whole world, who watched her like a 
 demon in the hope of profiting by a fault 
 which he could succeed in proving. This 
 was so well known that I trembled for her. 
 I had met her from time to time in society ; I 
 admired her immensely ; but, as you know, 
 I have never cried for the moon ! In short, I 
 was amazed to see her there in boy's clothes, 
 calm and quiet as if it were nothing but an 
 ordinary visit. I learnt at last that, being at 
 the waters in Bohemia, she had taken advan- 
 tage of tlie proximity to come and see me 
 again. I gave her to understand that her 
 
158 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 disguise was no good whatever, that on the 
 contrary it compromised her a great deal 
 more than if she had come openly, especially 
 since, beginning with my host, she was too 
 well known by all not to be recognised. I 
 was so far successful that she went away as 
 she had come, after a tete-a-tete breakfast, the 
 like of which under similar circumstances 
 would be hard to find. I promised to go and 
 see her ; but I did nothing of the kind. I 
 have always avoided fusses and troubles of 
 this kind, and I hate melodramas, especially 
 in private life. For all that, she came again 
 in the same way two years afterwards. I 
 was then living in retreat at Monte Mario. . . 
 She had a child's soul in the body of 
 a woman, and she was angelically candid 
 and frank. I made her sing my " Ave 
 Maria." She sang well enough to damn 
 a saint ! It will never be sung like that 
 again ! ' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 159 
 
 ' Well, what became of her afterwards ? ' 
 I asked. 
 
 ' She died ! ' 
 
 Then I saw in the master's face an emo- 
 tion such as I had never seen before. 
 
 How many charming shadows must he 
 have seen pass away, just touching his life 
 with their airy wings like swallows in their 
 flight ! What a magical kaleidoscope must 
 have been the souvenirs of this favoured man, 
 souvenirs which brought to him the perfume 
 of perennial springs, of flowers in abundance, 
 and of the reality of things dreamt ! 
 
160 FRANgbiS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Liszt's life, agitated and full of variety as it 
 was to the end, was no more than a reflection 
 of his individuality. This strange man's 
 uneasy soul was ever in quest of the ideal 
 which we ordinary people call happiness. 
 He searched everywhere for the ' unfindable; ' 
 he looked for it in the heart of woman, 
 amongst the altitudes of art, and in the mystic 
 shadows of churches. He hoped to reach it 
 in the bosom of peace, by creating for himself 
 a temporary retreat filled with incessant hard 
 work and encouraged by a true inspiration. 
 But what storms preceded these calms! 
 What struggles there were before he found 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 161 
 
 himself suddenly hidden away in some monas- 
 tery ! Was he flying from himself, or did he 
 seek to escape others ? . . . Those years of 
 meditation (from 1861 to 1868) which Liszt 
 spent in Rome were those during which the 
 dissensions were most bitter between Italy 
 and the Holy See. So, when Liszt took 
 orders, Italian satire naturally assailed the 
 Church and the prodigal son, just as weeds 
 will grow on the most venerable walls. 
 
 ' What luck for the Church,' it was said, 
 ' to have been able to catch Liszt ! He will 
 soften the discords and restore harmony.' 
 
 Again : ' What a pity it is Liszt is not 
 an Itahan ! He has played so well in every 
 key, that the keys of St. Peter could not be 
 in better hands.' 
 
 ' He has added to his bunch of keys the 
 keys of Paradise,' &c. 
 
 Pius IX. was passionately fond of music. 
 He was in regular correspondence with musi- 
 
 M 
 
162 FBANgOIS LISZT 
 
 cians of celebrity, and Eossini, for instance, 
 left quite a collection of the letters of the 
 Maecenas Pope. It is said that he sometimes 
 sang, getting Liszt to accompany him. The 
 master has never spoken of this. I quote it 
 as an on-dit, so universally repeated that one 
 of our canons himself, very fond of music, 
 contemplated having an historical picture 
 painted: Pope Pius IX. singing as he stood 
 near a piano on which Liszt in canonicals was 
 playing, and the group surrounded in the 
 background by the principal personages of 
 the papal court of that period. The death of 
 the canon prevented the idea from being 
 carried out. Pius IX. used to pass whole 
 hours Ustening to good music without moving 
 or speaking, in an ecstasy too deep for 
 outward expression. He admired and loved 
 Liszt, and called him 'his dear son,' 'his 
 Palestrina.' Liszt, on his side, had a grate- 
 ful recollection of him, and the only order 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 163 
 
 he ever spoke of before us was the one which 
 the Pope had added to his collection. One 
 day Pius IX. came to see the master in 
 his sohtude at Monte Mario, where he was 
 living in an old Dominican monastery. The 
 Holy Pather was sad, and directly he arrived 
 he gave Liszt to understand that he had come 
 on purpose to be cheered up by his talent. 
 He begged him to improvise. He also was 
 particularly fond of this kind of music, main- 
 taining that the originahty and the individu- 
 ality of the artist was more clearly marked 
 when nothing fettered the inspiration of the 
 soul. ' I played, therefore,' said the master, 
 ' as the spirit moved me. Perhaps my sym- 
 pathetic hearer inspired me ; but, without 
 wishing to praise my " strumming," I must 
 tell you that the Holy Father was deeply 
 affected, and when I had finished he said 
 rather a curious thing to me : 
 
 ' " The law, my dear Palestrina, ought to 
 
 M 2 
 
164 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 employ your music, if, however, she could 
 get it otherwise than in this spot, in order to 
 lead hardened criminals to repentance. Not 
 one could resist it, I am sure ; and the day is 
 not far distant, in these times of humanitarian 
 ideas, when similar psychological methods will 
 be used to soften the hearts of the vicious." ' 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 165 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 Liszt rarely spoke of Wagner ; this subject 
 was scarcely touched upon before he cut 
 short the conversation, often in an irritated 
 way, and talked of something else. But I, 
 knowing how complicated and interesting 
 must have been his relations with this ex- 
 ceptional man, who was so hard to get on 
 with — I came back to him, pretending not 
 to notice his evident aversion to the name. 
 
 Was it discretion or temper ? I cannot 
 say. The little I was able to gather is com- 
 prised in what I will now relate. 
 
 A contemporary^ writer attributes the 
 
 ' L6onie Bernardini, Hidmrd Wagiier : his Life, his Operatic 
 Poems, his Dramatic and Musical Method — a pamphlet which 
 
166 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 friendship between Liszt and Wagner ' to the 
 fact that the same wild and hopeless aspi- 
 rations towards the impossible and the un- 
 known moved at times both their souls : that 
 was their bond of union.' 
 
 I know Liszt too well to allow myself to 
 accept this bold and unjust definition. Liszt, 
 forgetting his own plans, recognised the inno- 
 vating genius of Wagner, and had an ardent 
 faith in him. Wagner, on his side, felt the 
 immense advantage of having such powerful 
 support, and knew how to make use of it. 
 Liszt's friendship was made up of self-denial, 
 courage, and personal efiacement. The mere 
 fact of seeing Wagner, this modern St. George, 
 persecuted and wandering from place to place 
 without respite, was sufficient to make Liszt 
 stand up in favour of the exile. 
 
 Liszt brought to me when it came out, with comments and 
 underlinings done hy himself in the most curious way. The 
 passage quoted above has in the margin a large note of interro- 
 gation. 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 167 
 
 Even if the ideas of the new prophet had 
 not influenced him, he would all the same 
 have tried everything to get him to triumph 
 over his persecutors. It was in Liszt's blood, 
 in that Magyar blood, ever ready to defend 
 whomsoever has need of defending. By 
 becoming the champion of so unpopular a 
 cause, Liszt declared war on the whole of 
 Germany, not to say on France, both of which 
 countries opposed this spirit of innovation 
 with all their strength. It was an innova- 
 tion, the invading and over-exciting nature 
 of which they seemed to have foreseen. 
 
 Liszt's prestige, together with his inde- 
 fatigable ardour in this work of musical con- 
 version, was alone sufficient to perform a 
 positive miracle. With his pen and his con- 
 ductor's bdton, he succeeded in giving a new 
 faith to sceptics, and, by sheer force of per- 
 severance, he turned those same sceptics into 
 fanatical believers. 
 
168 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 In order to understand the entire com- 
 pass of Liszt's work, one should turn to the 
 words spoken by Wagner, at the banquet of 
 farewell given by him at Bayreuth in 1882, 
 after the grand performances of 'Parsifal.' 
 When giving the toast 'Liszt,' Wagner offered 
 striking proof of his gratitude, and of the 
 inestimable services Liszt had rendered to his 
 cause. ' To-day,' said he, ' when, thanks to 
 the eminent artists now present, I can con- 
 template with pleasure and satisfaction my 
 work completed, I feel called upon to point 
 out to you the influence of this unique 
 and exceptional man over my whole artistic 
 career. When I was discredited, banished, 
 and repudiated by Germany, Liszt came to 
 meet me — Liszt, who had in the bottom of 
 his soul a thorough knowledge of my being 
 and my work. He said to me : " Artist, I 
 have faith in you ! " and he became the bond 
 of union, the bridge which led me from one 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 169 
 
 world to another, from that inner world in 
 the depths of which I had definitely retired, 
 to that outer world on whose judgnient the 
 creative artist must unquestionably depend, 
 and in which at that time every hand and 
 every voice was against me. It was he who 
 set me up, supported me, and proclaimed me 
 as no one else ever did. I ask you to drink to 
 the health of Fran9ois Liszt.' 
 
 ' You know,' said Liszt to me one day, ' I 
 was the first to get " Lohengrin " performed at 
 Weimar. One never knows how difficult it 
 is to persuade those who do not wish to 
 be persuaded. And I should never have suc- 
 ceeded without the assistance of the duchess. 
 She was the best-hearted woman I ever knew. 
 
 ' There are few more painful situations,' 
 added he, ' than was Wagner's during the ten 
 years when Germany resounded with his 
 triumph, and when " Lohengrin " passed from 
 stage to stage without the author having ever 
 
170 FEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 heard it. This period must have been more 
 trying to "Wagner than even deafness was to 
 Beethoven. How rebel against God and 
 against nature ? But, in this case, it was man 
 who inflicted the torture, and Wagner from 
 head to foot was nothing but rebelHon ! He 
 wrote to me once : " Soon there will not be 
 a German who has not heard 'Lohengrin,' 
 except myself ! " 
 
 ' But all this is ancient history, ... it is a 
 long time since people thought that ; but the 
 point of all this you will never guess. 
 
 ' The Wagnerites are in no way my friends, 
 and never lose an opportunity of letting me 
 know it. I have never been able to under- 
 stand the reason of their hostility. It is a 
 case for saying of the Wagnerites that they 
 are more royalist than the king, for Wagner 
 himself is not of their opinion ! 
 
 'The worshipped Wagner, the friend of 
 the King of Bavaria, in no way resembles,' 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 171 
 
 said Liszt, ' the Wagner who knocked at my 
 door at Weimar. Then he was a man in 
 despair, a Christopher Columbus in extremi- 
 ties, who had seen and touched this new 
 world which nobody would beheve existed. 
 He carried the treasures of it in his brain, 
 and he was looked upon as a madman. His 
 inspirations were catching, and he had a 
 power of making fanatics possessed by few. 
 He was a born reformer, and neither blood 
 nor fire would have daunted him. Still, there 
 never was a man who worked against his 
 own chances hke Wagner did. His genius 
 triumphed, so to speak, in spite of him, for 
 nobody put so many spokes in his wheels as 
 Eichard Wagner. In Paris, in 1861, this was 
 obvious. Everybody was at his command. 
 Princess Metternich had worked miracles to 
 get " Tannhauser " performed, but he spoilt 
 the whole thing. He was not accommo- 
 dating, it must be said. . . . Perhaps he was 
 
172 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 quite right ; ... his guiding star proved 
 it — afterwards.' 
 
 Speaking of the eccentricities of Wagner, 
 Liszt explained them to us in a few words : 
 'In the matter of glory Wagner had fasted 
 almost continuously for thirty years. Now 
 fasting weakens, and when glory at last did 
 come to him, not drop by drop like to other 
 mortals, but in a flood, he was not able to 
 receive it with calmness.' 
 
 With regard to Wagner's influence on 
 modern music, he said : ' Wagner has spoilt 
 the ground terribly for composers of the 
 future, just as Eubinstein is spoiling it for 
 pianists. You must be a poet and composer 
 of Wagner's calibre to be able to create a 
 world of your own ; and you must be a com- 
 poser and artist hke Eubinstein to be able 
 to interpret the works of others as he does. 
 That is the principal difference between 
 Eubinstein and Billow. . . . Bulow is pro- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 173 
 
 digious — amazing ; but Rubinstein has the 
 rare gift of creation.' 
 
 'You thus make a valuable distinction,' 
 said I to the master ; ' but it has only a real 
 value for those who have had the happiness 
 of not having heard you. . . .' 
 
 'lanka is in a complimentary humour,' 
 said Ldszt. turning towards my sister. 
 
 ' I repeat it,' I said. ' For those whom 
 your playing has so often raised to the reality 
 — who have heard your soul sing through the 
 medium of your fingers — for them there never 
 wiU be another pianist. The others, Eubin- 
 stein included, play pieces beautifully, I ad- 
 mit ; but you — you always play the soul, the 
 thoughts, and the sentiments of Liszt. You 
 transport us into a world which will die with 
 you, and of which we shall have nothing left 
 but the paradise of recollection — a paradise 
 out of which, as the poets say, we cannot be 
 driven.' 
 
174 FRAKgOIS LISZT 
 
 ' Come, come, it is you who are the poet, 
 dear child ; but perhaps there is some truth 
 in what you say. In this respect you ought 
 to have heard Taussig ; he was possessed 
 of that independent originaUty whose stamp 
 alters the appearance of things. He was the 
 pianist of the future. I sincerely regret him. 
 What dash, what power there was in his soul ! 
 I used to find new beauties in this or that 
 work of Scarlatti's or Schumann's, so power- 
 fully did his interpretation bring them into 
 relief. . . . Taussig was my best pupil.' 
 
 One day I took courage and ventured to 
 ask him this question : ' They say that Wag- 
 ner had a fatal influence over the King of 
 Bavaria ; is that also your opinion ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, " they say" but is there anything 
 they do not say ? ' replied Liszt. ' It is im- 
 possible to judge hghtly of a thing which is 
 without precedent in the history of art. 
 When Wagner described to us the kind of 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 175 
 
 man lie required to realise his projects and 
 give life to his ideas, people laughed, as they 
 laugh at a Utopia more or less as inaccessible 
 as the moon. Yes, there are lots of stories 
 current about "Wagner, all wanting in authen- 
 ticity. When the turning-point in his fate 
 was made manifest by the striking event, and 
 when the King of Bavaria sent for him, 
 Wagner must have felt he was being mocked 
 by a dream. Cinderella's godmother had been 
 revived in his interests. . . . If he had created 
 a Mtecenas to suit him he could not have 
 succeeded better. I beheve that the fatal 
 influence was reciprocal. On the one side the 
 fantastical tastes of Wagner would have 
 drained the treasures of Golconda, on the 
 other the whimsicahties of the king egged on 
 the schemes of Wagner. They spurred each 
 other on, and they worked miracles. It is 
 not the least surprising that envy should have 
 been roused. They say that the king began 
 
176 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 by giving Wagner a villa at Staremberg, to- 
 gether with a house in town and a surprisingly- 
 large annuity. The villa is pure invention, 
 and the annuity was most moderate. People 
 love to exaggerate. The same thing occurred 
 in the case of Madame Moukhanof ; when she 
 paid the deficit of ten thousand francs which 
 was the result of the concerts which Wagner 
 gave in Paris in 1860, the most absurd stories 
 got about. 
 
 ' " The mad ingratitude " of Wagner is 
 another favourite theme. What does any- 
 body know about it ? People make out that 
 he owed all his success to Meyerbeer. What 
 did he owe him ? that's what I want to know. 
 We ought one and all to help each other, and 
 Meyerbeer did his duty — with good grace, I 
 am ready to admit, but that was all. 
 
 ' Again, the character of Wagner is beyond 
 analysis. We artists, we are a convenient 
 prey to writers hard up for copy. They go 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 177 
 
 for us, and they write anything that comes 
 into their heads about us. . . . Like that 
 penny-a-liner, some years ago, who wrote de- 
 lightful things in a French paper about the 
 life of Chopin and your humble servant at 
 Nohant. They were very ingenious — told 
 with plenty of cleverness and go ; but they 
 were simply fiction. As far as I am con- 
 cerned, I don't remember a single incident in 
 which I am made to take a part. . . . Then 
 there was Madame Bernardini, who, and so 
 far she was right, calls me the intimate friend 
 of BerUoz, to whom I owe all that I have since 
 become ! 
 
 '- Now where did she get that information 
 from ? Can you tell me .? You see that is the 
 way history is written ; and the worst of it 
 is that you must let people have their say and 
 hold your tongue.' 
 
 If 
 
178 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 How hard Liszt worked is pretty well known. 
 We possess nearly seven hundred compositions 
 of his of all kinds, without counting quantities 
 of works of his young days lost or mislaid. 
 It was his custom to reconstruct, polish, and 
 repoHsh his great works, and he often spent 
 ten and even fifteen years embellishing them, 
 before he was satisfied and had them per- 
 formed. After his death, among other woika, 
 the complete score of an oratorio was found, 
 the oratorio of ' St. Stanislas,' which was 
 mentioned as long ago as 1873 in a letter 
 written from Eome by the Princess Wittgen- 
 stein to a friend' of ours. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 179 
 
 'He has established himself,' said she, 
 ' at the VUla d'Este, and is really working. 
 To get himself into training, he has composed 
 a tiny Httle poem which I had arranged for 
 him. ... It is virile and full of energy, 
 and has given me great hopes for the " St. 
 Stanislas." As he appears to me to be in a 
 good humour, I imagine he is in fine fettle 
 for work. Deo gratias ! ' 
 
 Princess de Wittgenstein was just the 
 person to spur him on to work. She was 
 possessed of a vast understanding and a rare 
 amount of learning ; she was occupied during 
 her last thirty years with a philosophical 
 work, of which she pubhshed ' the twenty- 
 second volume ' two years before her death 
 
 I have elsewhere pointed out what a pes- 
 simist view liszt took of the popularity of 
 his own school of music. I remember a key- 
 word given on this subject, a propos of an 
 article against him which had appeared in 
 
 y 2 
 
180 FKAN90IS LISZT 
 
 some German paper. He was attacked most 
 impudently, he was asked to give an account 
 of the society he frequented, and even of 
 the compositions he had paraphrased. From 
 good-nature and kindness, he had paraphrased 
 a melody of a certain M. Goldschmidt, who 
 was passionately fond of music, and who was 
 richer in gold, so it appears, than in talent.^ 
 In short Liszt could not be forgiven for his 
 condescension, and they told him what they 
 thought of him straight out. But there was 
 some one to take up the gauntlet. A reply 
 
 ' Liszt was not, as a rule, very partial to moneyed meD, and 
 had in no way that profound respect for gold which is one of 
 the striking characteristics of our times. He was of my opinion 
 when I said that a pocket too full had a tendency to deaden 
 the intellect. He loathed those wealthy people whose riches 
 were of no use to anybody but themselves. One evening we 
 were talking of one of our rich bankers whom a French literary 
 woman had, with some exaggeration, called the ' Kothschild of 
 iluda-Pesth.' Somebody scofBngly said, ' No, he is not the 
 ilothschild, but the Monte-Cristo of Buda-Pesth ! ' 
 
 ' Not a bit of it I ' struck in Liszt ; 'he is the Mount Sio^ 
 if Buda-Pesth.' 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 181 
 
 appeared which was as cutting as it was 
 full of generosity. 
 
 'Like aU mortals,' says M. Hengster, 
 among others, ' Liszt has naturally his weak- 
 nesses ; but one could wish that all human 
 weaknesses were as amiable and as inoffensive 
 as those of Liszt. Then we could really say 
 that we are on the way to the best of worlds. ' 
 
 Liszt brought us the articles, and I was 
 commissioned to write a few lines of thanks 
 to M. Hengster on behalf of the master. 
 
 ' Yes,' said he to us then, ' there is no more 
 to be said ; I am not favourably looked upon 
 as a composer ! But I am making way. Ten 
 years ago M. Hengster would nqt have 
 dared to write the article he has just pub- 
 hshed ; . . . and M. Goldschmidt — well, the 
 fact is, he is caballed against, and I wanted to 
 please him ! ' 
 
 The master had a mania for scattering his 
 manuscript compositions by giving them to 
 
182 PEAN90IS LISZT 
 
 his pupils to copy. At times his pupils 
 went off and took the manuscripts with them. 
 The story of a score lost in this way is very 
 odd. Liszt brought me a charming letter 
 one day from M. Saint-Saens, that great 
 artist, of whom he was particularly fond, and 
 whom he appreciated in every way. 
 
 ' Saint-Saens has written to me again. He 
 accuses me of a fault of which I have not 
 the slightest recollection. But read what he 
 says.' And I read what follows : — 
 
 Paris, Feb. 25, 1884. 
 
 ' Dear and Eevered Master, — ^You will 
 receive at the same time as this letter a score 
 which you will be very surprised to see, as 
 I was to find it at the back of a bookshelf 
 in my library, in the worst possible company, 
 among a lot of manuscripts of my own 
 which I thought I had lost. By waking up 
 my memory, I remembered that, long ago, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 183 
 
 M. (le B , whom I have entirely lost sight 
 
 of, brought it to me to show it to me. He 
 must have accidentally left it at my house, 
 and things must have been put in order, as 
 they frequently do get put at my place, 
 without in the least knowing what is put in 
 order and why it is done, and so the score 
 was lost sight of. I suppose you gave the 
 
 piece to M. de B to get a copy made of 
 
 it, for it is not a sketch. It is a score com- 
 plete in the smallest details, and it seems to 
 me it is not one of your least interesting pro- 
 ductions. For, though it is constructed on a 
 Pohsh subject which offers few opportunities, 
 you, who have the gift of turning everything 
 you touch into musical gold, have found 
 the way to make of this work something 
 powerfully original, in which your admirable 
 qualities are allowed full scope. Forgive me 
 if I take the great liberty of paying you com- 
 pliments as I would to an ordinary mortal. 
 
184 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 I love you so well, that I am sure you will 
 not take offence at it. 
 
 ''I have been on the point of leaving this 
 world for the last year, and I cannot think 
 without pain of the risk this manuscript 
 ran of being lost. Would that I could 
 find one like it in every corner of my room ! 
 &c. &c. 
 
 ' Your respectful pupil and friend, 
 ' C. Saint-Sabns.' 
 
 Speaking of this letter, the master told us 
 the following anecdote : — 
 
 ' I was busy with my " St. Elisabeth," and, 
 contrary to my usual way, I had mixed up and 
 scribbled over one of my songs to such an 
 extent that it wanted recopying. By chance 
 Taussig happened to be by me, and he under- 
 took to do it. I was just off on a trip, and I 
 was glad to accept his offer. When I came 
 back, I went to work again. I made some 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 185 
 
 alterations, and I went on without remember- 
 ing the work done for me, or it may be that 
 I wanted to do without it. Some months 
 afterwards, I played several passages out of 
 my " St. Elisabeth " at a matinee. That rascal 
 Taussig blushed, and in his turn seated him- 
 self at the piano. He also played a religious 
 song, but there ! in a most masterly way. I 
 thought I was dreaming ! what in the world 
 was he playing ? thought I. 
 
 ' He was surrounded and questioned, and at 
 last he confessed. It was my hymn, which he 
 had deciphered in spite of the corrections, but 
 instead of copying it he had paraphrased it 
 in his own way, and treated us to the result, 
 treated me first of all, since I did not remember 
 a word of it. . . . Taussig had something 
 better to do than copying hymns ! ' finally said 
 Liszt, with a smile. 
 
 A propos of M. Saint-Saens, I remember 
 one more incident. 
 
186 FBANgOIS LISZT 
 
 When the celebrated author of the ' Danse 
 Macabre ' — of which Liszt said : ' This " Danse 
 Macabre " carries one away so that one would 
 wish to be in it' — was in Buda-Pesth, this grand 
 master of the organ expressed a desire to try 
 the best organs of the capital. We have only 
 one organ that is at all remarkable, and that 
 is at the synagogue. A renowned journahst, 
 M. Agai, therefore arranged a kind of matinee 
 at the synagogue, where M. Saint-Saens was 
 to try the instrument in the presence of a little 
 select circle invited to enjoy the extraordinary 
 talent of the French artist. 
 
 They sent to invite Liszt to the entertain- 
 ment, but his valet would let no one come 
 into the house, as the master was sitting for 
 his portrait. After a great deal of discussion, 
 they fortunately succeeded in getting in. Once 
 in, Liszt was discovered sitting on a high plat- 
 form surrounded by all sorts of pianos and 
 harmoniums, and in full view of six or eight 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 187 
 
 ladies, several of whom were busy fixing his 
 striking features on canvas.^ 
 
 The master was peacefully slumbering 
 amidst the silence of conscientious work. He 
 awoke with a start at the sound of footsteps, 
 and recognising his visitor he smiled. 
 
 ' You have discovered me,' said he to him, 
 ' in the attitude of St. Sebastian ; the arrows, 
 in this case, are the paint-brushes ! ' 
 
 Speaking of portraits, I ought to mention 
 one which was particularly attractive to Liszt, 
 first of aU because he was fond of the artist, 
 and especially because he recognised himself 
 in other ways than in the hkeness. 
 
 This portrait seems destined to have an 
 adventurous existence. The painter of it. 
 Baron Joukowskii,^ had surpassed himself in 
 this work, executed with as much love for his 
 
 ^ One of these portraits, painted by the Countess Nemes, n4e 
 deBansonnet, a really talented painter, is a most successful one. 
 
 ' Son of M. Joukowskii, the translator of Homer (into 
 Russian), the tutor and friend of the Czar Alexander III. 
 
188 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 subject as talent for his art. It is the same 
 Baron Joukowskii who left his studio at 
 Naples, and came and established himself at 
 Bayreuth in order to paint the justly cele- 
 brated scenes in ' Parsifal.' The artist worked 
 under the inspiration of Wagner, and he had 
 great difficulty in satisfying that imagination, 
 haunted as it was by the supernatural. 
 
 What a wealth of beauty ! Wagner wished 
 the flowers to be as big as women, and the 
 women to be exactly like flowers. It was not 
 an easy thing to do, but it was done. 
 
 Now, M. Eisch, a German pianist, and the 
 Erard of Canada, having succeeded in inter- 
 esting Liszt in his career, and not wishing to 
 return to Toronto without the guardian angel 
 which he desired for the future to place over 
 his piano manufactory, was looking for a good 
 portrait of Liszt. But he wanted a portrait 
 painted by a master-hand. Liszt thought of 
 , Baron Joukowskii, and M. Eisch sent word, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 189 
 
 in a letter dated from Langen-Schwalbach, to 
 the master what a wonderful effect his few 
 lines of introduction had had, and at the same 
 time declared he was the happiest of mortals 
 in that he possessed the wonderful portrait. 
 
 Three months afterwards he sent some 
 EngHsh verses from Toronto, as well as an 
 accurate account of the way the image of the 
 master was received. 
 
 I quote M. Eisch's own words : 
 
 ' For weeks Toronto society came in their 
 thousands to our haU, with their hats off and 
 as serious as if they were in church. Men 
 come and gaze on those well-known, admired, 
 and venerated features. There is not a house 
 in Toronto, in which there is not a piano, and 
 where the name and works of Liszt are not 
 loved and admired. 
 
 ' The Princess Louise and the Marquis of 
 Lome and suite came also to pay their tri- 
 bute of admiration for genius, before leaving 
 
190 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 for England. This portrait, so strikingly 
 natural, establishes the talent of the artist, 
 and makes us all feel that you, dear master, 
 are in our midst ; and Canada feels richer and 
 happier at the thought of possessing you. 
 One of our poets was so inspired by that 
 splendid and almost speaking head, that he 
 wrote some verses on it, which I have the 
 honour of herewith enclosing to you.' 
 
 "We, who have met, while travelling, 
 Americans who were as enthusiastic about 
 Liszt as if they had known and heard him — 
 we found nothing astonishing in these ora- 
 tions from Toronto. 
 
 ' If Liszt cared to come to America,' said 
 Mr. Louth, a rich American merchant from 
 Boston, who was showing his daughters the 
 Continent, ' he could make millions by just 
 playing one piece at each concert. I would 
 willingly give a hundred dollars just to see 
 and hear the old lion !....' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 191 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 A CLEVER woman asked Liszt one day whether 
 the quality of the human voice had deterio- 
 rated in recent times, or whether it was that 
 the ear of the audiences was blase, for, with 
 few exceptions, we have lost ground in the 
 matter of singing. 
 
 ' The quality of voices has deteriorated,' 
 replied the master ; ' or rather, talent is not 
 so conscientiously trained and cultivated as 
 formerly. The arts have also their season for 
 blooming — the season for exceptional voices 
 seems to me to be on the wane — not so much, 
 perhaps, in opera as in private life. I often 
 think that in Eome and in Weimar the arts. 
 
192 FEAKgOIS LISZT 
 
 by becoming general, lose much of their in- 
 tensity. The whole method of playing has 
 changed — the go of the old days has dis- 
 appeared, people are interested in too many 
 things. That " certain poetry of aristocratic 
 drawing-rooms," as Chopin called the manner 
 of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, no longer ex- 
 ists. It was the amateurs who were the finest 
 ornaments of the drawing-rooms, the forcing- 
 houses of art. What numbers of amateurs 
 there were, between the years 1830 and 1850, 
 whose talent could well be matched with that 
 of the artists of the very first order ! What 
 music we heard in Paris, Geneva, and Milan ! 
 music of dilettanti, it is true, but against 
 which we "in the profession" had little: 
 chance. And particularly the ladies : Countess 
 Samoylofi*, Potocka, Jamaglio, and many 
 others of more recent date, whose magnificent 
 voices, cultivated solely for pleasure, would 
 at the present moment make fortunes. Juha 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 193 
 
 Samoyloff was a nightingale. I have never in 
 any voice found that peerless tone. I am told 
 that at the present moment there are in Paris 
 several ladies who are not only artists, but 
 are gifted with splendid voices. The finest of 
 aJl, they say, is that of Countess de Mailly. I 
 am sorry I do not know her, for she could 
 help me to prove what I have just said. . . .' 
 Liszt had known all the artists of his day, 
 with the exception of Bottesini, the soloist, 
 and, besides, interested himself in growing 
 artistic greatness ; and he always kept himself 
 au courant of musical and literary pubhcations 
 of every description. Manuscript works were 
 sent to him by the hundred, and he was 
 obliged to, at least, look through some of 
 them. As a rule his opinion was quite in- 
 dependent of the approbation or blame with 
 which a work of art was received. But — and 
 this was what gave his enemies an opportu- 
 nity of accusing himj^of partiality — the innate 
 
 
 
194 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 respect he felt for work as such, and his won- 
 derful forbearance, which, by the way, can be 
 noticed in many great characters, led him at 
 times to give his patronage to works which 
 scarcely deserved such an honour. His axiom, 
 ' There is nothing so unjust as ignorance 
 and mediocrity,' used to lead him too far on 
 the path of good-nature. Still, he says in his 
 book ' On Bohemians : ' ' To work at art, and 
 even to work at it well, is after all in no way 
 the same thing as possessing the supreme gift 
 of creating, and that makes the difference 
 between talent and genius. The one handles 
 sentiments and forms already known, the 
 other sings in virtue of a personal inspiration 
 in the manner which that inspiration dictates 
 and teaches.' And so he treated composers 
 whom he really looked upon as serious, with 
 more severity than the artists who perforin. 
 
 Thus he followed with constant attention 
 the development of Eussian music, and wel- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 195 
 
 corned the musical novelties which came to 
 him from the banks of the Neva, not only 
 with kindly good-will, but also with the eye 
 of a critic ; for he was ever on the look-out 
 in these compositions for that exotic aroma 
 which he considered essential if ever the 
 hopes of this flower of a new sun were to be 
 realised. And how dehghted he was when 
 he detected the looked-for spark of genius ! 
 how pleased he was to read over ' Islamey,' 
 ' that charming Oriental rattle ' of Balaki- 
 reff's ! 
 
 Some years ago, at a soiree, he did the 
 honours to a curious and original Eussian 
 composition. It was an ' arrangement of a 
 popular subject, dedicated to young pianists, 
 who could very weU play the piece with one 
 finger of each hand.' The master played the 
 valses, polkas, and marches with marvellous 
 go, and got the guests to play the piece each 
 in turn. He was delighted with this work 
 
 o 2 
 
196 FRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 ' It is,' said he, ' as ingenious as a Chinese 
 puzzle — a plaything if you will — but a very 
 precious one for all that.' 
 
 He played Borodine's little polka and Lia- 
 doff's valse several times ; and he gave to 
 Kimsky-Korsakoff's peal of bells a never-to-be- 
 forgotten rendering. 
 
 While showing me, one day, the work of 
 one of his Eussian pupils, he said to me : 
 ' Properly speaking, there is as yet no Eussian 
 music, but there are some first-rate com- 
 posers. The Eussian mind, which is in con- 
 tinual activity on the one side and comatose 
 on the other, will have to do an immense 
 amount of work in order to properly direct 
 its natural tendencies ; and this is the result 
 of the climate of the country and of the 
 Sclav character in general. Just as the long 
 months of their winters are followed by short 
 summers full of rapid expansion, so Eussian 
 music has long monotonous intervals in be- 
 
EECOLLBCTIOHS 197 
 
 tween the bursts of melody ; but these melo- 
 dies ought to be brimful of the sap of their 
 short summer. . . . Besides, there is yet 
 too much of the vague, of the undecided, too 
 much of dreaminess in this music, destined 
 nevertheless, 1 beheve, to have a great fu- 
 ture. One feels that the Eussian composers 
 go to work under a more or less sentimental 
 inspiration, and not under the all-powerful 
 impression of a master-idea. The idea is the 
 sentiment, the body, the impalpable. You 
 understand what happens. ... If Eussian 
 music had the resolute vigour and the ori- 
 ginality of Antocholskii's chisel it would 
 create a new era in music' 
 
 On another occasion, when speaking of a 
 quatuor by M. Hasounof, a young musician 
 then only seventeen, which the young com- 
 poser had sent to him, the master said : 
 
 ' For a boy of his age this work is simply 
 prodigious ; it is full of promise ; . . . but 
 
198 FBANgOIS LISZT 
 
 he also has failed to find new strings on the 
 old lyre. The Russians have not yet suffi- 
 ciently fathomed the secret of working on 
 the salient points of their musical nationality 
 and of their character. Their originality is 
 deep rooted in the soil ; it is an emanation of 
 the land, and is inseparable from its snows, 
 its steppes, and from the way its sons look 
 upon life and death. It is this which some 
 day will give to their music that stamp 
 of individuality without which it will ever 
 remain nothing more than a variation of the 
 music of other countries. . . . With their 
 dash, their faith, and their talent, they are 
 sure to discover what will be the national 
 music. Their art is young, you see, and, in 
 art, youth is rarely an advantage. They have 
 already done wonders, and they will go on 
 doing them.' 
 / 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 199 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I DO not think I have ever spent an hour 
 in the master's company without his saying 
 something clever or striking. 
 
 One evening last winter, whilst he was 
 playing whist, which had become quite a 
 passion with him (I was looking on at the 
 game), his partner played a king when he 
 should have played any other card. 
 
 ' What shall we do with that king ? ' I 
 asked him. 
 
 ' Oh, nothing. In these days kings are 
 no longer troublesome.' 
 
 He did not realise how prophetic his say- 
 ing was ; for the events of a few months later 
 
200 FRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 verified the prophecy, through the tragic 
 ending of the King of Bavaria and the down- 
 fall of the Prince of Bulgaria. 
 
 Another time they were speaking in his 
 presence of a minister of finance who had 
 just died, and who, having passed his life in 
 working to make a fortune, left his affairs so 
 involved that his heirs barely inherited as 
 much as the financier had originally com- 
 menced with. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Liszt, ' he was believed to be 
 a great financier ; he is like the doctors who 
 never know how to cure themselves.' 
 
 No matter what chord was touched, one 
 was sure to hear him vibrate. 
 
 This life with its thousands of facets left 
 a storehouse of impressions and reminiscences, 
 the echo of which was ever being awakened. 
 I am sure I am right when I say that the 
 shadows of the past came crowding into the 
 thoughts of Liszt in numbers which increased 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 201 
 
 in proportion as his powers weakened and 
 caused him to become more of a dreamer. 
 The hour-glass was imperceptibly running 
 out, and the emptier it grew the more his 
 emotional soul turned towards the days of 
 struggles and enjoyments. 
 
 I had a proof of this one day, when seeing 
 the 'Greville Memoirs' on my table the 
 master gave himseK up to serious reflections 
 on the danger ' of opening your heart and 
 pouring out your spleen ' on paper. He ad- 
 mitted having been very much amused with 
 this excessively clever and mahcious book. 
 He remembered having known the author ; 
 but he declared that the past, which we love 
 to idealise, would lose all its fascination if the 
 number of works of the ' GrevUle Memoirs ' 
 were to increase. 
 
 ' At one time,' he said to us, 'when I was 
 being carried swiftly down the stream of life 
 without a spare moment for reflection, I took 
 
202 FBANgOIS LISZT 
 
 it into my head never to retire at night with- 
 out hastily noting down, as shortly as possible, 
 the essence as it were of my day and my 
 thoughts. 
 
 ' This went on for eight or ten days, then 
 something interrupted the idea, and I thought 
 no more about it. Years afterwards, while 
 rummaging among a lot of old papers, I came 
 across a note-book, which I opened at random. 
 I was amazed ; I could not believe my eyes, 
 my handwriting alone could convince me 
 that I had really written those unpardonable 
 lines. The blows fell thick under my pen, 
 and the oddest thing is that these notes in no 
 way expressed my opinion of men and things, 
 nor did they coincide with my character. 
 They were nothing but flashes of humour, of 
 irony, of temper, or of enthusiasm, mad and 
 ill-natured ideas which did not spare even 
 my friends — in fact, a collection of stuff and 
 nonsense, the importance of which at the 
 
KECOLLECTIOKS 203 
 
 time I had exaggerated. . . . Memoirs writ- 
 ten from day to day will always give a more 
 or less false idea of their author and of the 
 times they are supposed to describe. After 
 this experience of my own I distrust these 
 sorts of books ; they are as a rule not nearly 
 so true as they would have us believe. 
 
 ' Greville was bilious, fond of eating, and 
 vindictive, and every time he got an attack 
 of indigestion the world appeared to him 
 under a false and ugly aspect. I myself was 
 passionate and cutting — a passionate man 
 ought always to distrust his first impulses. 
 I have done some rare stupid things under 
 the influence of these first impulses! You 
 know about the year 1845 or 1846 "mne- 
 monics " was the fashionable science ; it 
 teaches you to have a memory. I did not 
 require one myself! My terrible memory has 
 made me suffer enough during my life. I 
 should have preferred to have studied the 
 
204 FRAN90IS LISZT 
 
 science of forgetfulness ; unfortunately it is 
 one which cannot be learnt ! ' 
 
 This ' terrible memory' of Liszt's was shown 
 even in the most trivial things. One was 
 amazed to hear him give minute details about 
 things which took place fifty years ago; it 
 was a faculty which could not fail to give an 
 exceptional charm to the stories the master 
 told us. As for forgetting a promise, that was 
 what Liszt had never been known to do. If, 
 for instance, he said ' I wiU come,' he came, 
 no matter what obstacles were put in his way. 
 The master had as a rule an excessive regard 
 for his duty to society. It was one of his 
 most striking characteristics. He was in- 
 exorable on this point, and hated society 
 fault-finders. He never gave himself airs, 
 he was courteously grateful for every kind- 
 ness and for every pleasant thing said to 
 him. 
 
 He carefully avoided disappointing anyone. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 205 
 
 no matter who, so long as he saw disinterested 
 intention, and that the regard was for him 
 personally, and with no idea of making use of 
 the , artist. I never remember having heard 
 of Liszt missing an invitation after he had 
 accepted it. For this reason nothing annoyed 
 him more than to see others take liberties 
 which he did not allow himself. In these 
 cases he would admit of no excuse, no matter 
 how valid it might be, as the following anec- 
 dote wiU show. 
 
 The master very much hked Uttle enter- 
 tainments got up in his honour. We had 
 asked him to dinner one day, together with 
 one of his favourite pupils who had come 
 from Paris on purpose to see him. After 
 dinner a number of musical people had been 
 invited to admire the wonderful talent of 
 Madame Jaell. 
 
 But in the morning of the same day a 
 terrible piece of news spread in the town. 
 
206 FKANfOIS LISZT 
 
 The supreme judge of Hungary, M. de 
 Mailath, had been found murdered in his 
 study. The crime was all the more striking 
 on account of the irony involved, the victim 
 being the chief of that supreme authority 
 whose duty it was to punish crimes of this 
 kind. The whole town was in a ferment, 
 people got nervous in their own house, they 
 distrusted their servants — and with reason, for 
 the suspicions against the judge's valet were 
 found to be only too correct. Naturally our 
 Hungarian guests did not come. However, 
 one of them, a relation of the Mailaths, had 
 sent no excuses, and the master, who was par- 
 ticularly anxious to see him, waited for him 
 without stirring. I tried in vain to make him 
 understand that it was impossible to imagine 
 that this person could desert the family under 
 such circumstances. 
 
 ' Has he been murdered ? ' asked the 
 master. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 207 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Has he sent his regrets ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Well, then, let us wait. He will come.' 
 
 So we were obliged to let our dinner get 
 spoilt. We waited in this way for an hour 
 and a half, Liszt refusing to admit that any 
 personal matter whatever could allow of such 
 a want of good manners. He was in any- 
 thing but a pleasing humour during dinner, 
 and he was with difficulty persuaded to be 
 pleasant later on. At ten o'clock we at last 
 got the solution to the problem. The gentle- 
 man in question had hurried off to the scene 
 directly he heard of the terrible crime. He 
 had with his own hands cut the rope with 
 which the murdered man had been strangled, 
 and in the distress caused by such a horror 
 he made a mistake in addressing his excuses, 
 which were sent to a mutual friend of ours, 
 who happened to be out when they arrived, 
 
208 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 and forwarded them to us as soon as possible. 
 But even that was no good. The master was 
 put out, and his resentment lasted for a long 
 time after that. 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 209 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 One day Liszt finislied one of our conversa- 
 tions with these words : 
 
 ' There is nothing so subhme as true 
 independence of character unsupported by 
 pecuniary independence.' This expression 
 explains many of his characteristics. He 
 himself had never known the cruel sting of 
 poverty ; he had only caught glimpses of it 
 at a distance ; for all that, he never forgot 
 the impression of it. This expression also 
 explains to us his proverbial benevolence, 
 and at the same time his passionate admira- 
 tion for characters which, like Berlioz and 
 Wagner, go on fighting without intermission 
 
 p 
 
210 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 against the stream, in order to remain true 
 to the ideal whose divine form they have had 
 the happiness to foresee. Liszt, it is true, did 
 as they did, but always under the most fa- 
 vourable circumstances. Still it is pleasant 
 to note that, the more he was favoured by a 
 providence infatuated with its spoUt darling, 
 the better he understood the moral sufferings 
 engendered by poverty, this scourge which 
 wounds great intellects much more severely 
 than ordinary men. Ah ! how well he knew 
 the secret sorrow and the painful pride of 
 those beginners in art, sprung at times from 
 the most humble clay, who stuck to their 
 work, fasting and numbed with cold, but sup- 
 ported in this desperate struggle by the con- 
 soling thought of being able perhaps one day 
 to feed their aged parents — a consolation 
 which is only an additional burden, but the 
 prospect of which centuples their strength 
 and helps them to do wonders ! 
 
KECOLLECTIONS 211 
 
 When only fifteen years of age, liszt gave 
 striking proofs of the dehcacy and proud 
 independence of his character in matters 
 connected with money. His father died 
 suddenly at Boulogne ; the child, accustomed 
 hitherto to see only the smiling side of hfe, 
 found himself all of a sudden alone, and 
 burdened with a number of liabilities con- 
 tracted during his father's illness, and in- 
 creased by the expenses of his funeral. In- 
 stead of drawing on the few thousands of 
 florins placed in the keeping of Prince 
 Eszterhkzy for the support of his mother, or 
 of seeking a loan from one of his many 
 friends, he sold his precious Erard for a mere 
 song, in order to at once discharge his obhga- 
 tions. From this moment, even in the midst 
 of his despair, he felt himself to be responsi- 
 ble for his mother's happiness. He got her to 
 come to Paris, and established himself there 
 with her. He constituted himself her pro- 
 
 F 2 
 
212 FRANfOIS LISZT 
 
 tector and her support ; surrounding her with 
 chivalrous regard, and a tenderness the depth 
 of which is shown in the following fact. If he 
 happened to come home late, I mean unrea- 
 sonably late, when he knew his mother was 
 asleep, he used to lie down on the stairs, 
 where he would be found tired and stiff in the 
 morning, but happy in that he had not dis- 
 turbed the sleep of his adored mother. 
 
 Following his father's views, he began by 
 giving lessons, and it was at this time that 
 was enacted the idyl of his youth — an idyl 
 which nearly cost him his life. His precocious 
 love for one of his pupils — the young Countess 
 de Saint-Cricq — love which was shared and 
 encouraged by the mother of the young girl, 
 is too well known for me to give here any of 
 its details. Suffice it to say that the downfall 
 of his hopes threw him into a dechne which 
 would have proved fatal had not the thought 
 of his duty to his mother succeeded in rousing 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 213 
 
 him from his lethargy. It was at this time 
 that he wrote the following lines : — 
 
 'Poverty, that old go-between, joining man 
 with every evil, dragged me from my darling 
 solitude, and placed me face to face with the 
 public, on whom depended not only my exist- 
 ence, but also that of my mother. I was 
 young and passionate, and I suffered cruelly 
 from the contact with outward things to 
 which my vocation of musician exposed me, 
 whilst my heart was entirely handed over to 
 the mystic sentiments of love and religion.' 
 
 This period of struggles with the reahties 
 of hfe left indelible marks on this proud, as 
 well as charitable, soul. I again call attention 
 to his benevolent actions, which were as care- 
 fully concealed as if they were crimes. His 
 great donations, of which at the time the 
 whole of Europe spoke, and which represented 
 a princely fortune, cannot be measured with 
 the thousand ingenious actions in which the 
 
214 FEANfOIS LISZT 
 
 heart of Christ is shown in its most subHuie 
 form. 
 
 I have elsewhere mentioned that I acted 
 as his secretary for some years. Letters came 
 to him from all parts of the world,^ the con- 
 tents of which were various in one sense and 
 monotonous in another. 
 
 Always and invariably the same idolatry — 
 he must have been sick of it ; and he was 
 always asked for something. If he had wished 
 to look through the manuscripts of music and 
 literature which were sent to him asking for 
 help and advice, he would have passed his life 
 at it, and then he would not have been able 
 to satisfy everybody. Then the autograph 
 hunters — those nuisances to every man of 
 
 * Nothing amused me so much as the invitations, of unheard- 
 of naivete, which came from the other side of the Atlantic. 
 One Chicago lady used to send him a card for her ' at home ; ' 
 another sent him word to say that he was always at the head 
 of her list of guests. A lady of Omaha invited him to come to 
 ' her day,' promising to have several of his compositions played, 
 &c. 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 215 
 
 renown ! He found himself obliged to put a 
 paragraph in the papers to the effect that in 
 future Franyois Liszt must refuse to grant all 
 requests of this nature. The same paragraph 
 was printed in the form of a letter and sent in 
 reply to the thousands of requests he received. 
 And finally, last but not least, the calls on his 
 purse. The Bank of England would not have 
 been enough for him if he had always followed 
 his first impulses. To this generous man, who 
 had scattered gold by the million without 
 ever thinking of his own wants, to this royal 
 nature who placed his talent at the service of 
 charity whenever it was solicited, it was a 
 mortification to say No and refuse to give the 
 alms asked for. His goodness was inexhaust- 
 ible — it could not be worn out ; and I admired 
 the simple-minded man who never even tried 
 to discover whether the hands held out to- 
 wards him were worthy of receiving his 
 benefits. He did good because he felt an 
 
216 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 imperious desire to do it, and his heart, like a 
 church, was open to all humanity. 
 
 Nevertheless, the ingratitude often shown 
 to him in return for his noble disinterestedness 
 used to wound him deeply. He himself was 
 a man who boasted of all favours received, 
 and nothing was so distasteful to him as in- 
 gratitude, which he called ' poverty of heart.' 
 On the other hand, he did not like any one to 
 get the credit of munificence which they had 
 never practised. M. Trifonof, for instance, 
 relates that Liszt was at the age of nine loaded 
 with presents by Prince Nicolas Eszterhkzy. 
 Liszt has scratched out all this passage, put- 
 ting in its place: 'N.B. — Prince Nicolas 
 Eszterhkzy, brother of Prince Paul, who was 
 for many years ambassador to London, never 
 gave me a single present. But from the year 
 '40 the ambassador always showed me great 
 kindness.' 
 
 To return to the master's correspondence. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 217 
 
 He sent me one day a perfectly fresh batcli of 
 letters, all unopened, and just as he received 
 them from the post office. It was my duty 
 to read them through first, and to pick out 
 those which required an answer. I came 
 across a letter very badly written in a shaky 
 hand, and spelt abominably, containing the 
 bUl for a man's complete suit of clothes, the 
 amount of which came to a good deal. It 
 was a mother giving an enthusiastic account 
 of her son's first concert, and adding, in ac- 
 cordance with the master's wishes, that the 
 young man had not the least idea where his 
 fine clothes had come from, and was under 
 the impression that his mother had paid for 
 them out of her savings. Knowing whom I 
 was dealing with, I put on an indifferent 
 manner whUe communicating the contents 
 of this letter; but no sooner had I men- 
 tioned the name of his correspondent than 
 Liszt took the letter out of my hand, put it 
 
218 FRANgOIS LISZT 
 
 in his pocket, and said : ' Let's get on to some^ 
 thing else.' 
 
 Unfortunately this day was destined to be 
 a disastrous one for his modesty, for another 
 of his pupils of growing celebrity wrote that 
 on arriving at his destination he had seen 
 with gratitude how ingeniously the naaster 
 had paved the way for him ; how, thanks to 
 him, pecuniary difficulties no longer hindered 
 him in the execution of his projected concerts, 
 and, having made a success, he sent the printed 
 programme of his first performance. A third 
 sent him word of the kind reception he had 
 met with from several famihes in Paris in 
 consequence of his invaluable aid. ' Your 
 letters of introduction, dear master, have 
 been like marvellous " open sesames." Instead 
 of living like a hermit in the modern Babylon, 
 as I did last year, I find myself unexpectedly 
 among the happy butterflies fluttering in the 
 sunshine. . . .' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 219 
 
 On another occasion we had made an en- 
 gagement to go to the picture exhibition. 
 By chance, and contrary to the ways of ladies, 
 we arrived too soon, and being ushered in by 
 his valet, I was very much surprised to find 
 the master sitting at a table heaped up with a 
 pile of bank notes and letters with addresses 
 on them in his handwriting. When he saw 
 my sister and myself he looked annoyed, 
 almost embarrassed, but he almost imme- 
 diately recovered himself; he rang the bell, 
 ordered sherry and cake to be brought as 
 usual, and begged us to make ourselves at 
 home. 
 
 ' You find me hard at work on a tough 
 job,' said he to us. ' I am playing at Provi- 
 dence. It is a thankless part, but stiU I have 
 to go through it twice a year. However, I 
 am accustomed to the exigencies of hfe ; but 
 who will take the part when I am gone ? That 
 is what at times gives me food for thought.' 
 
220 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 ' Nobody will ever be able to replace you 
 in this part, nor in any other,' replied I, I 
 had taken off my gloves and had settled 
 myself in my old place on the little couch 
 facing him. ' I will help you — will you let 
 me?' 
 
 ' Very well ; here you are.' And he 
 pushed the bundle of notes towards me. 
 ' Be good enough to put in the envelopes 
 the sums written on them,' said he. 
 
 ' Would it not be simpler to send these 
 amounts by postal orders ? ' asked I. 
 
 ' No, my dear child, one must gild the pill 
 with an affectionate line or two. It is sad 
 enough to have to receive such messages. . . .' 
 
 ' But sadder still not to receive them at all, 
 when one is in want,' replied I, moved to tears 
 by the goodness of his noble heart ; and I 
 admired, while I was apportioning the money, 
 with what careful punctuahty, a thing most 
 dear to Germans, he gave to each the sum 
 
BECOLLECTIONS 221 
 
 eacli was entitled to — to the retired officer, 
 to the widow of such and such a member of 
 the orchestra, &c. He was very particular 
 about these httle considerations, knowing how 
 much the poor man, who has passed his life 
 in incessant toil in order to reach a certain 
 degree of esteem, chngs to these small results, 
 which are often more imaginary than real. 
 And he, who soared so high, showed a 
 dehcate indulgence to aU these Httle human 
 weaknesses, which are really a moral sup- 
 port to the less fortunate of this world. 
 
 It is unnecessary for me to say that at 
 parting he pressed my hand, saying : 
 
 ' We understand each other, do we not ? 
 What took place this morning is a secret 
 between us.' 
 
 But I cannot attempt to enumerate the 
 sufferings which were alleviated by the 
 foresight of his good heart. His hand was 
 truly that blessed hand in which the five 
 
222 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 loaves of the Gospel fed five thousand! A 
 portion of the letters he received during the 
 time I was his unsalaried secretary has re- 
 mained in my possession. I consider them a 
 testimony a thousand times more precious of 
 the grandeur of Liszt, than the crowns of 
 laurels with which he was covered at his 
 concerts, the leaves of which we used to vie 
 with one another to possess. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 223 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 In the midst of a great discussion on fanati- 
 cism some one asked Lord Beaconsfield, 
 ' How would you describe a true patriot ? ' 
 
 'As a man who is an honour to his 
 country,' repHed the celebrated Premier. 
 
 ' What, even if he is far away, and cares 
 nothing for his country ? ' 
 
 ' In that case, I care not how great he 
 may be, he is no longer an honour to his 
 country. But one can be far from one's 
 country, and yet be useful to it. The essential 
 is that one should he useful to it.' 
 
 These words of the great EngUsh patriot 
 always come back to me when I hear 
 
224 FKANfOIS LISZT 
 
 Liszt reproached for little sins of omission 
 which were mentioned against him as if they 
 were high treason. He could not speak our 
 language. Alas ! how many old men there 
 are in Hungary, born at the beginning of the 
 century, who cannot speak Hungarian either! 
 Even the province where Liszt was born is 
 precisely the only one in all Hungary where 
 the German element continues to predominate. 
 Still Liszt was so anxious to assimilate himself 
 to his nation that on several occasions he 
 made an effort to learn Hungarian. But he 
 did not succeed. This beautiful and sonorous 
 language, so musical and so powerful, will 
 not lend itself to a superficial study such as 
 is enough for the Latin languages. Being in 
 no way connected with any European idiom, 
 it presents to strangers the same difficulties 
 as are found in Turkish or Persian. Liszt, 
 therefore, finding himself unable to speak 
 Hungarian, was obliged to be contented with 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 225 
 
 feelirig himself to be Magyar, and acting as 
 such. All those who, at the time of his death, 
 reproached him with being a ' bad patriot ' 
 would have done better not to have forgotten 
 that, if deeds speak more eloquently than words, 
 Liszt was a greater patriot than many of our 
 brilhant orators. What was his crime ? He 
 lived abroad ! But, great God ! what would 
 have become of him if he had been left in 
 Hungary at a time when, with the exception 
 of a few aristocratic famihes, nobody took 
 any interest in the fine arts, when there was 
 neither an academy nor a school of music 
 in the country ? Seventy years later, at 
 the present time, our painters and musicians 
 do come back to us — for a time — from the 
 foreign country where they became great. 
 But even now they go abroad in order to 
 become great ! 
 
 Liszt hardly knew his native land at all, 
 and yet the time came when the sacred fire 
 
 Q 
 
226 PBANgOIS LISZT 
 
 of patriotism took possession of his soul, and 
 pointed out the course which he ought to 
 take. He had left his country at the age 
 of nine, and had by his tastes and his in- 
 clinations bepome assimilated to the nation 
 which had supported him during the sixteen 
 years of his intellectual and moral develop- 
 ment. All those things which form the most 
 lasting ties between a man and the land he 
 lives in, his struggles, his triumphs, his joys, 
 and his loves — all attached Liszt to France. 
 To France ! that great home of intellect, that 
 centre of art and knowledge, ever ready to 
 welcome genius and shower her favours on 
 it. Still, such was the mysterious power of 
 the first impressions, of his childhood, that, 
 at the news of the terrible calamity to his 
 country caused by the inundation of 1838, 
 the Magyar in him awoke unimpaired, noble 
 and generous. He was in Venice when the 
 cry of Hungary's distress reached him ; he 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 227 
 
 describes the impression produced by it in a 
 letter to Lambert Massard. 
 
 'The news of this terrible disaster,' said 
 he, ' has so strongly impressed me that my 
 heart will never know rest, my eyes will 
 never know sleep, until I have found a way 
 to contribute my mite towards the relief of 
 the sufferings of my country. . . . 
 
 'By means of these tumultuous and hi- 
 therto unknown sentiments, the meaning of 
 the words " native land " was revealed to me. 
 I saw myself suddenly carried back into the 
 past, and I found again in my heart, pure and 
 intact, the treasures of my youthful memo- 
 ries. Nature in her grandeur spread herself 
 out before my eyes ; I saw the Danube dash- 
 ing over the rocks ; I saw vast grassy plains 
 on which thousands of sheep were peacefully 
 browsing ! It was Hungary, that generous 
 and fertile land which had reared a noble 
 race ! It was my native land ! And I also, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 FRANCOIS LISZT 
 
 I exclaimed, in a burst of patriotism at 
 which, perhaps, you will smile, I also am a 
 son of this brave and indomitable nation 
 which yet will see more happy days ! . . . . 
 
 ' This race has ever been great and heroic. 
 In these breasts of athletes none but noble 
 sentiments can have place. - These haughty 
 brows were never made for slavery. Their 
 minds, more powerful than those of other 
 nations, have never allowed them to be 
 dazzled by deceptive splendours ; their feet 
 have never wandered in evil ways ; their 
 ears have never listened to the words of false 
 prophets. ... It has never been said to 
 them, " Christ is here — Christ is there." But 
 let a powerful voice come and rouse them from 
 their slumberings. . . . Ah ! how they will 
 take hold on the truth ! what a sure refuge 
 will they prepare for her in their hearts! 
 with what glorious might will they defend 
 her ! For they are brave and strong. . . . 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 229 
 
 Nothing has yet bent their will, nothing has 
 deceived their hopes ! ... Oh, my far away 
 and wild native land ! My beloved and 
 unknown friends ! Oh, my great, my noble 
 family ! Thy cry of distress has called me 
 back to thee, and, cut to the heart by thy 
 voice, I bow my head in all humility, ashamed 
 of having been able so long to forget thee ! ' 
 
 In fact, Liszt left Venice and hurried to 
 Vienna in order to give two concerts there in 
 aid of the sufferers from the inundations in 
 Hungary. The original two concerts were 
 increased to ten, and even then the unprece- 
 dented enthusiasm of the people of Vienna 
 was not satisfied. 
 
 The magnificent receipts from these per- 
 formances all went to Hungary, accompanied 
 by the sincerest sympathy of the generous 
 artist. This gift was only the beginning of a 
 long series of similar offerings. From that 
 time Liszt never again lost sight of his 
 
230 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 country. He not only gave with lavish 
 hands each time he visited Hungary, or when 
 some calamity afflicted our country ; but he 
 succeeded besides in interesting foreign coun- 
 tries in us, which greatly multiplied chari- 
 table contributions. He proved his patriotism 
 by opening his door, his arms, and his purse 
 to all fellow-countrymen. I could name 
 numbers of artists of Hungarian birth who 
 achieved renown abroad through the gener- 
 ous assistance of Liszt, who, if he thought it 
 necessary, used his influence on their behalf 
 just because they were Hungarians. 
 
 Does not this refute the ungrateful and 
 iU-natured insinuations of certain fault-finding 
 factions ? 
 
 Why do they not rather remember the 
 year 1839, when the first artist of the world, 
 who was looked upon by his fellow-country- 
 men as the representative of their intellectual 
 interests, the embodiment of their ideal, and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 231 
 
 the hope of their dawning aspirations — when 
 he was received with enthusiasm by a people 
 intoxicated by their own excitement, which 
 led them on to intellectual heights hitherto 
 unexplored ? 
 
 These are recollections which do us more 
 credit than those of recent years, and more 
 worthy of him who was the first to make 
 the word ' Magyar ' resound throughout the 
 world, and spread the germ of that sympathy 
 which is now felt for us among foreign coun- 
 tries. At a time when Hungary was less 
 known by civiHsed Europe than China, Liszt 
 called himself with pride Magyar, and thus 
 threw on his country the brilliancy of his 
 glory, and won all hearts to us with his 
 ' Hungarian Rhapsodies.' I discovered what 
 we owe to these rhapsodies through chance 
 meetings — ^in Florence from a Eussian family ; 
 in the train from Americans. 
 
 People in general have still very vague 
 
232 FEANfOIS LISZT 
 
 ideas about Hungary. Five years ago, at a 
 table cthote, my sister having spoken to me in 
 Hungarian, a party of English people began 
 to talk about our country. One of them 
 amused his friends with a very witty descrip- 
 tion of Buda-Pesth as it is, where, according 
 to him, ' society still speaks Latin, where the 
 men wear the national costuhie all covered 
 with embroideries, where the women walk 
 about in decollete dresses, having as a head- 
 dress a coquettish little cap covered with 
 gold lace, while the Hungarian horses gallop 
 at liberty on the corso of the Danube in the 
 midst of a more picturesque than clean 
 crowd.' The rest was in the same style. ' It 
 is only in politics that Hungary is on a par 
 with European nations,' continued the ro- 
 mancer, while his audience reHgiously listened ; 
 'but, with the exception of politics, Hungary 
 is still, in the matter of civilisation, in its 
 infancy.' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 233 
 
 Out of fifty people present not one of 
 them contradicted him ! 
 
 On the other hand, I have known people 
 who saw in Liszt a representative of Hungary, 
 and judged the rest of the nation by him. 
 This is an opinion just as extreme as was 
 that of my English friend, only in an inverse 
 sense. 
 
 The ' Hungarian Ehapsodies ' show us Hun- 
 gary in its lyrical and martial aspect. We see 
 its sufierings, its hopes, its impetuous ardour, 
 its battles, and its triumphs, and that basis of 
 character, half indifferent, half strange, which 
 defies analysis. They found an echo in every 
 heart. In Russia, in England, in Scotland, 
 they have been played, and are played, 
 with zeal. But those who have not heard 
 them played by Liszt himself can have no 
 idea of their worth or of the magical effect 
 they are capable of producing. I shall never 
 forget one of his matinees, always brilliant 
 
234 FKANgOIS LISZT 
 
 and run after, when he played the second of 
 these Ehapsodies, dedicated to Count Ladislas 
 Teleky, of tragic memory. It was a revela^ 
 tion ! Eor the first time, I felt that the artist 
 was truly blood of our blood, and that, if his 
 lips could not speak our language, his soul 
 spoke it all the better. One could feel the 
 fire and sweetness of Tokay in those languorous 
 ' melopceias,' in those daring rhythms, and in 
 the electric fluid which seemed to be gene- 
 rated. The saying, ' The Hungarian amuses 
 himself in tears,' which describes so concisely 
 the Magyar disposition, was never better 
 expressed — and that, too, from the very 
 first notes, grave and pompous, majestic and 
 slow, which recall the commencement of the 
 polonaise, when the two dancers, holding 
 each other's hands, let themselves be lulled in 
 their sadness to finally and gradually give 
 themselves up to the more marked move- 
 ments of the lassu. The melodies collected 
 
EECOLLECTIOKS 235 
 
 haphazard from the national lyre unfold the 
 whole gamut of sentiment, resignation, love's 
 sorrows, the joy of shared misfortune, desire 
 and self-denial, mourning of the patriot, de- 
 spair which is nothing else but home-sick- 
 ness for liberty rooted in the heart of this 
 people, which has bled for centuries in sla- 
 very. There is nothing more strange and more 
 melancholy. Then, little by little, the rhythm 
 grows more animated, it is abrupt, brusque, 
 checked by starts, but always full of intoxi- 
 cating melody. Mirth gets the upper hand ; a 
 catching fire takes possession of the couples ; 
 they seek each other, they try to escape each 
 other, they clasp each other, then leave each 
 other. The delirium of intoxication takes 
 hold on their fevered souls, and they are 
 carried away by the flaming whirlwind of this 
 striking music, which grows madder every 
 moment. It culminates in a savage cry, 
 paroxysm of fury and joy, which escapes 
 
236 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 from the lips of the dancer, be he prince or 
 peasant, and whose sharp note, full of pas- 
 sion and excitement, electrifies the crowd 
 like the sound of the clarion. . . . Ah ! how 
 he threw back his lion head, how his face 
 beamed at this sublime inspiration, of which 
 we all felt the irresistible sway ! . . . 
 
 Shall we ever again hear music like that ? 
 Will this soul of fire ever come back to us in 
 any form ? It is a useless question. I shall 
 never have it answered. . . . 
 
KECOLLBCTIOKS 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 Ah ! what a sad sight it is to see an eagle out 
 of his element, and forced to drag along the 
 ground instead of soaring in the heavens ! 
 
 I firmly believe that Liszt's stay in Buda- 
 Pesth strengthened his resolve to visit the 
 scenes of his past triumphs. Accustomed from 
 his youth to be surrounded by everything 
 which is highest in intellect, he found himself 
 annually reduced for several months to lead- 
 ing the dull life of a bourgeois. He felt then 
 an irresistible longing to forget the uninter- 
 esting experiences forced upon him, by seek- 
 ing elsewhere that atmosphere which he could 
 
238 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 not do without for long, and which our cli- 
 mate could not offer to him. 
 
 It is true that if he showed himself in 
 public, or if one of his compositions were 
 played, he was always frantically applauded. 
 It is part of the Hungarian character to love 
 ovations and noisy enthusiasm ; but, on the 
 other hand, people, especially in private life, 
 very soon get tired of idols, and the sustained 
 interest of the public is rarely accorded to any 
 but great politicians,, and not always to them. 
 In other countries, society is principally mo- 
 delled on the example given by the court. It 
 insensibly loses its original character in order 
 to adopt the tastes and antipathies of the 
 circle which gives the ton. Among us, this 
 is not the case. It is a curious and perhaps 
 a unique instance in the history of manners 
 that Hungarian society does not adopt the 
 customs of the court except when they coin- 
 cide with its own tastes. Even the courtiers 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 239 
 
 do not, in any way, feel obliged to follow the 
 lines laid down by the sovereign if they do 
 not agree with their own inclinations. One 
 knows how fashionable sport of every kind is 
 at our court. Eiding, shooting, and racing 
 are the order of the day. The emulation 
 which this produces has not been without re- 
 sults. The whole country, headed by the aris- 
 tocracy, delight in horses and all pleasures 
 connected with them. For all that, the Eoyal 
 family is very literary. The Crown Prince 
 takes a serious interest in science and litera- 
 ture ; he is -the author of several works of 
 merit, and is a member of the Academy of 
 Sciences of Buda-Pesth. The Crown Princess 
 Stephanie, young and beautiful though she is, 
 is not exclusively occupied with futile plea- 
 sures. On the contrary, she is devoted to 
 hterature and the fine arts. She is an excel- 
 lent musician, besides drawing beautifully. 
 She has just decorated with several drawings 
 
240 FRAlfgOIS LISZT 
 
 the monumental work, ' The Austro-Hun- 
 garian Monarchy,' which appears under the 
 protection of Prince Eudolph. There is a 
 charming anecdote in connection with these 
 drawings. According to the scheme designed 
 for this vast enterprise, the emolument of the 
 contributors was fixed beforehand. Conse- 
 quently, when the committee accepted the 
 sketches of the Crown Princess, they also 
 adjudged to her the sum she was entitled to. 
 But how were they to get the money to her ? 
 They did not know how to go about it. Then 
 the Crown Prince hit upon the ingenious de- 
 vice of offering it to her registered in a savings 
 bank book. The savings bank book bore the 
 name of the little Archduchess Elisabeth, the 
 daughter of the artist mother. The Arch- 
 duchess Marie Valeria has amused herself 
 from her childhood by composing poetry, 
 which she pubhshes in different German 
 papers, as well as by writing little plays, 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 241 
 
 two of which have been privately acted at 
 court. 
 
 The Arch-duchess took a real pleasure in 
 everything intellectual, and gave a touching 
 proof of it two years ago. She did not know 
 Liszt, having neither seen nor heard him, but 
 she wished to enrich her young hfe with an 
 indelible souvenir. "Without announcing her 
 visit, she went with her cousin, Princess 
 Amelia of Bavaria, to see the master. Liszt 
 was iU — it was the morning of the very day 
 when he wrote the little note of which we 
 have given a facsimile. These graceful and 
 sprightly ladies arrived, and were amazed to 
 find the great man, whom they had pictured 
 to themselves as formidable and serious, so 
 good-natured and kind. He felt himself grow 
 young again under the influence of the bright 
 sunshine shed over that charming hour by 
 their simple enthusiasm. 
 
 They got him to explain the pictures 
 
 R 
 
242 FKAN^OIS LISZT 
 
 hanging on the walls of his rooms, they ad- 
 mired the elaborate furniture, and everything 
 in that quiet, but artistic home. At last Liszt 
 went to the piano, and gave them a splendid 
 musical entertainment, foreseeing, perhaps, 
 that his hearers would take away a souvenir, 
 destined beforehand to be an only one. When 
 they left, Liszt, of course, wished to see his 
 distinguished visitors to the door ; but the 
 Arch-duchess Marie Valeria would not allow 
 him to leave his sitting-room, and with her 
 own hands ' shut the door in his face.' 
 
 A few days afterwards they sent large 
 photographs of themselves to Liszt, in lovely 
 frames, and signed at foot. 
 
 The old maestro was deeply touched by 
 this visit and the present of the photographs. 
 The homage of youth has singular charms 
 for old age — it is saddening and gratifying at 
 the same time ; but it is the melancholy note 
 which predominates ! 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 243 
 
 At the last, surprises of this kind became 
 rarer and rarer during the months which 
 Liszt spent in our capital. 
 
 Elsewhere people fight to secure the 
 society of literary and artistic lions ; with us 
 they are avoided. They disturb the Oriental 
 dolce far niente, and that delightful mental 
 idleness, out of which one dislikes to be use- 
 lessly roused. Pohtics alone absorb men. . . , 
 
 Again, we Hungarians are not in the 
 least curious. The effect is sufficient for us. 
 So long as the effect is agreeable we never 
 seek the cause. If the plaything amuses us 
 we care little about its mechanism, or the man 
 who invented it. One begins, for instance, to 
 have a taste for painting. One goes to see 
 the picture-shows with the most praiseworthy 
 zeal. One even buys pictures ; but nobody 
 cares about the painters ; nobody takes the 
 slightest interest in them. In the same way 
 one listens to music, the concert-halls are full, 
 
 B 2 
 
244 FBAN90IS LISZT 
 
 but nobody struggles to take possession of the 
 artists. They are given ample leisure to rest 
 on their laurels. 
 
 Things were not like this, they say, thirty 
 years ago, at least among the aristocracy, 
 which had acquired abroad more elevated 
 intellectual tastes. We are passing through a 
 transition stage ; but alas ! it is a case of re- 
 peating the celebrated mot of Liszt's in reply 
 to the remark of King Louis Philippe. 
 
 ' Do you remember the time,' said the 
 king to him, ' when you played at my house 
 as a little boy, when I was yet Duke of 
 Orleans ? Things have greatly changed since 
 then ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, sire ; but not for the better,' repHed 
 Liszt, dryly. 
 
 The reply cost Liszt the Legion of Honour, 
 but it will ever remain as a further proof of 
 his noble independence of character. 
 
 With us, too, things have not changed for 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 245 
 
 the better. People do not even imitate the 
 court which does occupy itself with artists 
 and men of talent. 
 
 Whenever Liszt came to us as a guest for 
 a Httle while, he was feted and sought after ; 
 then people got used to seeing him — he was at 
 home — and that was all. . . . Then he roused 
 himself. 
 
 ' Will you really go to France and Eng- 
 land ? ' I asked him the last day he spent with 
 us. He threw back his head in his well- 
 known way, and replied in a never-to-be- 
 forgotten tone : 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; I shall not die of isolation 
 during the next months !....' 
 
 And with a trembling, though still power- 
 ful hand, he grasped again the enchanted cup 
 of hfe ! 
 
 We tried to dissuade him from under- 
 taking this journey. Not knowing the secret 
 presentiment whose influence moved him, we 
 
246 FEANgOIS LISZT 
 
 feared the effect of fatigue on liis already- 
 weakening powers. We did not wish to see 
 him a living allegory of the inexorable harsh- 
 ness of time, on the very scene of his past 
 triumphs ; but such was his prestige that his 
 presence alone was sufficient to wake again 
 the echoes of his greatness. He suddenly 
 found himself to be the centre of a crowd 
 of the elite. Eoyalty heaped favours on him, 
 arts and sciences came to salute him. . . . 
 For one last time he put on the purple of 
 his glory, and then expired amidst the iride- 
 scent fires of a magnificent sunset. 
 
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