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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Music-Study in Germany, by Amy Fay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Music-Study in Germany
+       from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay
+
+Author: Amy Fay
+
+Editor: Fay Peirce
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2011 [EBook #37322]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MUSIC-STUDY IN GERMANY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MUSIC-STUDY IN GERMANY
+
+[Illustration: colophon]
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+NEW YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO DALLAS
+ATLANTA  SAN FRANCISCO
+
+MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
+
+LONDON  BOMBAY  CALCUTTA
+MELBOURNE
+
+THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD,
+TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+MUSIC-STUDY IN GERMANY
+
+FROM
+
+THE HOME CORRESPONDENCE
+OF AMY FAY
+
+EDITED BY
+
+MRS. FAY PEIRCE
+
+AUTHOR OF "CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING"
+
+"The light that never was on sea or land."
+
+WORDSWORTH
+
+"Pour admirer assez il faut admirer trop, et un peu d'illusion
+est necessaire au bonheur."
+
+CHERBULIEZ
+
+WITH A PREFATORY NOTE
+BY O. G. SONNECK
+
+NEW YORK
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+1922
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+COPYRIGHT,
+JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY
+1880.
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1896,
+BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+Printed August, 1896; reprinted June, 1897;
+September, 1900; February, 1903; March, 1905;
+June, 1908; July, 1909; August, 1913; April, 1922.
+
+Norwood Press:
+Berwick & Smith, Norwood, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE.
+
+
+Comparatively few books on music have enjoyed the distinction of
+reissue. Twenty-one editions is an amazing record for a book of so
+narrow a subject as "Music Study in Germany." The case of Miss Amy Fay's
+volume becomes all the more unusual, if one considers that her letters
+were written only for home, not for a public audience and further that
+within twenty years from the year of first publication, her observations
+had become more or less obsolete.
+
+The Germany of the years 1869-1875 was quite different from the Germany
+of 1900 and certainly of 1912, even down to German table-manners. The
+earlier "Spiessbürgertum" of which Miss Fay gives such entertaining
+glimpses even in high quarters with their pomp and circumstance, was
+rapidly being replaced, at least outwardly, by the more cosmopolitan
+culture of the _fin de siècle_, not to mention the ambition for
+political, industrial and commercial "Weltmacht" in a nation thitherto
+known, perhaps too romantically, as a nation of "Denker und Dichter."
+
+Most of the heroes of the book are long since dead, Miss Fay included,
+who died in 1921. While even as late as 1890, Miss Fay's volume could
+have been used as a guide of orientation by the would-be student of
+music in Germany, certainly it could no longer serve such a purpose
+during the years just prior to the war, when the lone American student
+of her book who despised Germany and everything German was definitely in
+the ascendency. In other words, her personal observations had ceased to
+be applicable except in certain details of ambient and had passed into
+the realm of autobiography valuable for historical reading. As a piece
+of historical literature proper, I doubt that the book would have
+survived the war, because it is lamentably true that the average
+American music-student or even cultured lover of music is not
+particularly interested in musical history as such.
+
+To this must be added the indisputable fact that "music study in
+Germany" or in France, for that matter, had become a mere matter of
+personal taste and predilection, and was not a necessity as in the days
+of Miss Fay's amusing experiments with this or that German teacher of
+renown. An endless stream of excellent European artists and teachers had
+poured into America since then, augmented by the equally broad stream of
+native Americans who had learned their _métier_ abroad. Music study in
+America thus became an easy matter and many an aspiring virtuoso would
+have done more wisely by staying and studying at home, instead of
+venturing to a European country with its different language, its
+different temperament, its different mode of living, customs and so
+forth. Germany, in particular, is still a "marvellous home of music," to
+quote an editorial remark of Miss Fay's sister, but it is no longer the
+"only real home of music," thanks precisely to such artists as Miss Amy
+Fay herself.
+
+To point out the radical change in conditions in that respect is one
+thing, quite another to deny, as some rather zealotic patriots do, that
+Europe, Germany included, can still give the American music-student
+something which he does not have at home quite in the same manner.
+Debate on that subject is futile. Let the American music-student at some
+time in his career, but only when he is ripe for further study in a
+foreign country, sojourn a few years in Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Munich,
+Vienna, Rome, London, and he will profitably encounter, whether it be to
+his taste or not, that indefinable something which the old world in
+matters of life, art, and art-life possessed as peculiarly its own in
+1870, still possesses to-day, and will possess for many, many years to
+come.
+
+What, then, gives to Miss Fay's book its vitality? What is it that
+justifies the publisher in keeping the book accessible for the benefit
+of those who wish to study music in Germany instead of elsewhere or of
+those even who study music in America?
+
+Of course, there is first of all the charm of Miss Fay's own
+personality, the charm of her observations intimately, entertainingly,
+and shrewdly expressed. That makes for good reading. Incidentally, it
+teaches a student-reader to be observant, which unfortunately many
+musicians are not, even in matters of technique on their chosen
+instrument. Secondly, the seriousness of purpose of the authoress, the
+determination to improve her understanding of art and technique to the
+very limit of her natural ability, will act as a stimulating tonic for
+him or her who despairs of ever conquering the often so forbidding
+difficulties of music. The book will teach patience to Americans,
+patience and endurance in endeavor, qualities which are none too
+frequent in us. Young America forgets too often that the _Gradus ad
+Parnassum_ is not only steep; it is long and rough.
+
+There is furthermore in these letters that respect for solid
+accomplishment of others, that reverential attitude toward the great in
+art and toward art itself, without which no musician, however talented,
+will ever reach the commanding heights of art. There permeates these
+letters the enthusiasm of youth, that perhaps sometimes overshoots its
+mark but for which most of us would gladly exchange the more critical
+attitude of maturer years. For we learn to appreciate sooner or later
+that enthusiasm is the propelling force and the refreshing source of
+inspiration. Finally, born of all these elements there appear on the
+pages of Miss Fay's letters such fascinating pen-portraits as that of
+her revered master, Franz Liszt, the incomparable. Turning the pages of
+the volume to refresh my memory and impression of it, I confess that I
+skipped quite a few because their interest seemed so remote and
+personal, but I found myself absorbing every word Miss Fay had to say in
+her chapters about Liszt and his Weimar circle. An enjoyable experience
+which one may safely recommend to those who desire first-hand
+impressions of the golden days of pianism in Germany, of the romantic,
+indeed almost legendary figure of Franz Liszt, and consequently a touch
+of the stuff out of which art-novels are made, into the bargain.
+
+    O. G. SONNECK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In preparing for the public letters which were written only for home, I
+have hoped that some readers would find in them the charm of style which
+the writer's friends fancy them to possess; that others would think the
+description of her masters amid their pupils, and especially Liszt,
+worth preserving; while piano students would be grateful for the
+information that an analysis of the piano technique has been made, such
+as very greatly to diminish the difficulties of the instrument.
+
+How much of Herr Deppe's piano "method" is original with himself,
+pianists must decide. That he has at least made an invaluable _résumé_
+of all or most of their secrets, my sister believes no student of the
+instrument who fairly and conscientiously examines into the matter will
+deny.
+
+    M. FAY PEIRCE.
+
+CHICAGO, Dec., 1880.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.
+
+
+Miss Fay's little book has been so popular in her own country as to have
+gone through half a dozen editions, and even in German, into which it
+was translated soon after its first appearance, it has had much success.
+It is strange that it has not been already published in England, where
+music excites so much attention, and where works on musical subjects are
+beginning to form a distinct branch of literature. This is the more
+remarkable because it is thoroughly readable and amusing, which books on
+music too rarely are. The freshness and truth of the letters is not to
+be denied. We may laugh at the writer's enthusiasm, at the readiness
+with which she changes her methods and gives up all that she has already
+learnt at the call of each fresh teacher, at the certainty with which
+every new artist is announced as quite the best she ever heard, and at
+the glowing and confident predictions--not, alas, apparently always
+realised. But no one can laugh at her indomitable determination, and the
+artistic earnestness with which she makes the most of each of her
+opportunities, or the brightness and ease with which all is described
+(in choice American), and each successive person placed before us in his
+habit as he lives. Such a gift is indeed a rare and precious one. Will
+Miss Fay never oblige us with an equally charming and faithful account
+of music and life in the States? Hitherto musical America has been
+almost an unknown land to us, described by the few who have attempted it
+in the most opposite terms. Their singers we already know well, and in
+this respect America is perhaps destined to be the Italy of the future,
+if only the artists will consent to learn slowly enough. But on the
+subject of American players and American orchestras, and the taste of
+the American amateurs, a great deal of curiosity is felt, and we commend
+the subject to the serious attention of one so thoroughly able to do it
+justice.
+
+    GEORGE GROVE.
+
+December, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+TO THE GERMAN EDITION.
+
+
+Die vorliegenden Briefe einer Amerikanerin in die Heimath, die im
+Original bereits in zweiter Auflage erschienen sind, werden, so hoffen
+wir, auch dem deutschen Leser nicht minderes Vergnügen, nicht geringere
+Anregung als dem amerikanischen gewähren, da sie in unmittelbarer
+Frische niedergeschrieben, ein lebendiges Bild von den Beziehungen der
+Verfasserin zu den hervorragendsten musikalischen Persönlichkeiten, wie
+Liszt, v. Bülow, Tausig, Joachim u. s. w. bieten.
+
+Wir geben das Buch in wortgetreuer Uebersetzung und haben es nur um
+diejenigen Briefe gekürzt, die in Deutschland Allzubekanntes behandeln.
+Hingegen glaubten wir die Stellen dem Leser nicht vorenthalten zu
+dürfen, welche zwar nicht musikalischen Inhalts sind, uns aber zeigen,
+wie manche unserer deutschen Zu-oder Mißstände von Amerikanern
+beurtheilt werden.
+
+    Robert Oppenheim, Publisher.
+
+Berlin, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+IN TAUSIG'S CONSERVATORY.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+                                                                    PAGE.
+
+A GERMAN INTERIOR IN BERLIN. A GERMAN PARTY. JOACHIM.
+TAUSIG'S CONSERVATORY.                                                13
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CLARA SCHUMANN AND JOACHIM. THE AMERICAN MINISTER'S. THE
+MUSEUM. THE CONSERVATORY. OPERA. TAUSIG. CHRISTMAS.                   25
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+TAUSIG AND RUBINSTEIN. TAUSIG'S PUPILS. THE BANCROFTS. A
+GERMAN RADICAL.                                                       37
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OPERA AND ORATORIO IN BERLIN. A TYPICAL AMERICAN. PRUSSIAN
+RUDENESS. CONSERVATORY CHANGES. EASTER.                               51
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE THIER-GARTEN. A MILITARY REVIEW. CHARLOTTENBURG.
+TAUSIG. BERLIN IN SUMMER. POTSDAM AND BABELSBERG.                     64
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE WAR. GERMAN MEALS. WOMEN AND MEN. TAUSIG'S TEACHING.
+TAUSIG ABANDONS HIS CONSERVATORY. DRESDEN. KULLAK.                    79
+
+WITH KULLAK.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MOVING. GERMAN HOUSES AND DINNERS. THE WAR. CAPTURE OF
+NAPOLEON. KULLAK'S AND TAUSIG'S TEACHING. JOACHIM. WAGNER.
+TAUSIG'S PLAYING. GERMAN ETIQUETTE.                                   95
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CONCERTS. JOACHIM AGAIN. THE SIEGE OF PARIS. PEACE DECLARED.
+WAGNER. A WOMAN'S SYMPHONY. OVATION TO WAGNER IN
+BERLIN.                                                              111
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+DIFFICULTIES OF THE PIANO. TRIUMPHAL ENTRY OF THE TROOPS.
+PARIS.                                                               123
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A RHINE JOURNEY. FRANKFORT. MAINZ. SAIL DOWN THE RHINE.
+COLOGNE. BONN. THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. WORMS. SPIRE.
+HEIDELBERG. TAUSIG'S DEATH.                                          131
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+EISENACH. GOTHA. ERFURT. ANDERNACH. WEIMAR. TAUSIG.                  145
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DINNER-PARTY AND RECEPTION AT MR. BANCROFT'S. AUDITION AT
+TAUSIG'S HOUSE. A GERMAN CHRISTMAS. THE JOACHIMS.                    157
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+VISIT TO DRESDEN. THE WIECKS. VON BÜLOW. A CHILD PRODIGY.
+GRANTZOW, THE DANCER.                                                163
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A RISING ORGANIST. KULLAK. VON BÜLOW'S PLAYING. A PRINCELY
+FUNERAL. WILHELMI'S CONCERT. A COURT BEAUTY.                         174
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE BOSTON FIRE. AGGRAVATIONS OF MUSIC STUDY. KULLAK.
+SHERWOOD. HOCH SCHULE. A BRILLIANT AMERICAN. GERMAN
+DANCING.                                                             182
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A GERMAN PROFESSOR. SHERWOOD. THE BARONESS VON S. VON
+BÜLOW. A GERMAN PARTY. JOACHIM. THE BARONESS AT HOME.                192
+
+
+WITH LISZT.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+ARRIVES IN WEIMAR. LISZT AT THE THEATRE.--AT A PARTY. AT
+HIS OWN HOUSE.                                                       205
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+LISZT'S DRAWING-ROOM. AN ARTIST'S WALKING PARTY. LISZT'S
+TEACHING.                                                            218
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+LISZT'S EXPRESSION IN PLAYING. LISZT ON CONSERVATORIES. ORDEAL
+OF LISZT'S LESSONS. LISZT'S KINDNESS.                                227
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+LISZT'S COMPOSITIONS. HIS PLAYING AND TEACHING OF BEETHOVEN.
+HIS "EFFECTS" IN PIANO-PLAYING. EXCURSION TO JENA. A
+NEW MUSIC MASTER.                                                    235
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LISZT'S PLAYING. TAUSIG. EXCURSION TO SONDERSHAUSEN.                 248
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+FAREWELL TO LISZT! GERMAN CONSERVATORIES AND THEIR METHODS.
+BERLIN AGAIN. LISZT AND JOACHIM.                                     263
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+KULLAK AS A TEACHER. THE FOUR GREAT VIRTUOSI, CLARA SCHUMANN,
+RUBINSTEIN, VON BÜLOW AND TAUSIG.                                    272
+
+WITH DEPPE.
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+GIVES UP KULLAK FOR DEPPE. DEPPE'S METHOD IN TOUCH AND IN
+SCALE-PLAYING. FRÄULEIN STEINIGER. PEDAL STUDY.                      283
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+CHORD-PLAYING. DEPPE NO MERE "PEDAGOGUE." SHERWOOD.
+MOZART'S CONCERTOS. PRACTICING SLOWLY. THE OPERA BALL.               299
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A SET OF BEETHOVEN VARIATIONS. FANNIE WARBURG. DEPPE'S
+INVENTIONS. HIS ROOM. HIS AFTERNOON COFFEE. PYRMONT.                 311
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE BRUSSELS CONSERVATOIRE. STEINIGER. EXCURSION TO KLEINBERG.
+GIVING A CONCERT. FRÄULEIN TIMM.                                     328
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+MUSIC IN HAMBURG. STUDYING CHAMBER MUSIC. ABSENCE OF RELIGION
+IN GERMANY. SOUTH AMERICANS. DEPPE ONCE MORE.
+A CONCERT DEBUT. POSTSCRIPT.                                         331
+
+
+
+
+IN TAUSIG'S CONSERVATORY.
+
+
+
+
+MUSIC-STUDY IN GERMANY.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     A German Interior in Berlin. A German Party. Joachim. Tausig's
+     Conservatory.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _November 3, 1869_.
+
+Behold me at last at No. 26 Bernburger Strasse! where I arrived exactly
+two weeks from the day I left New York. Frau W. and her daughter,
+Fräulein A. W., greeted me with the greatest warmth and cordiality, and
+made me feel at home immediately. The German idea of a "large" room I
+find is rather peculiar, for this one is not more than ten or eleven
+feet square, and has one corner of it snipped off, so that the room is
+an irregular shape. When I first entered it I thought I could not stay
+in it, it seemed so small, but when I came to examine it, so ingeniously
+is every inch of space made the most of, that I have come to the
+conclusion that it will be very comfortable. It is not, however, the
+apartment where "the last new novel will lie upon the table, and where
+my daintily slippered feet will rest upon the velvet cushion." No!
+rather is it the stern abode of the Muses.
+
+To begin then: the room is spotlessly clean and neat. The walls are
+papered with a nice new paper, grey ground with blue figures--a cheap
+paper, but soft and pretty. In one corner stands my little bureau with
+three deep drawers. Over it is a large looking-glass nicely framed. In
+the other corner on the same side is a big sofa which at night becomes a
+little bed. Next to the foot of the sofa, against the wall, stands a
+tiny square table, with a marble top, and a shelf underneath, on which
+are a basin and a minute soap-dish and tumbler. In the opposite corner
+towers a huge grey porcelain stove, which comes up to within a few feet
+of the ceiling. Next is one stiff cane-bottomed chair on four stiff
+legs. Then comes the lop-sided corner of the room, where an upright
+piano is to stand. Next there is a little space where hangs the
+three-shelved book-case, which will contain my _vast_ library. Then
+comes a broad French window with a deep window-seat. By this window is
+my sea-chair--by far the most luxurious one in the house! Then comes my
+bureau again, and so on _Da Capo_. In the middle is a pretty round
+table, with an inlaid centre-piece, and on it is a waiter with a large
+glass bottle full of water, and a glass; and this, with one more stiff
+chair, completes the furniture of the room. My curtains are white, with
+a blue border, and two transparencies hang in the window. My towel-rack
+is fastened to the wall, and has an embroidered centre-piece. On my
+bureau is a beautiful inkstand, the cover being a carved eagle with
+spread wings, perched over a nest with three eggs in it. It is quite
+large, and looks extremely pretty under the looking-glass.
+
+After I had taken off my things, Frau W. and her daughter ushered me
+into their parlour, which had the same look of neatness and simplicity
+and of extreme economy. There are no carpets on any of the floors, but
+they have large, though cheap, rugs. You never saw such a primitive
+little household as it is--that of this German lawyer's widow. We think
+our house at home small, but I feel as if we lived in palatial
+magnificence after seeing how they live here, _i. e._, about as our
+dressmakers used to do in the country, and yet it is sufficiently nice
+and comfortable. There are two very pretty little rooms opposite mine,
+which are yet to be let together. If some friend of mine could only take
+them I should be perfectly happy.
+
+At night my bed is made upon the sofa. (They all sleep on these sofas.)
+The cover consists of a feather bed and a blanket. That sounds rather
+formidable, but the feather bed is a light, warm covering, and looks
+about two inches thick. It is much more comfortable than our bed
+coverings in America. I tuck myself into my nest at night, and in the
+morning after breakfast, when I return to my
+room--_agramento-presto-change!_--my bed is converted into a sofa, my
+basin is laid on the shelf, the soap-dish and my combs and brushes are
+scuttled away into the drawer; the windows are open, a fresh fire
+crackles in my stove, and my charming little bed-room is straightway
+converted into an equally charming sitting-room. How does the picture
+please you?
+
+This morning Frau and Fräulein W. went with me to engage a piano, and
+they took me also to the conservatory. Tausig is off for six weeks,
+giving concerts. As I went up the stairs I heard most beautiful playing.
+Ehlert, Tausig's partner, who has charge of the conservatory, and
+teaches his pupils in his absence, examined me. After that long voyage I
+did not dare attempt anything difficult, so I just played one of Bach's
+Gavottes. He said some encouraging words, and for the present has taken
+me into his class. I am to begin to-morrow from one o'clock to two. It
+is now ten P. M., and tell C. we have had five meals to-day, so Madame
+P.'s statement is about correct. The cooking is on the same scale as the
+rest of the establishment--a little at a time, but so far very good. We
+know nothing at all about rolls in America. Anything so delicious as the
+rolls here I never ate in the way of bread. In the morning we had a cup
+of coffee and rolls. At eleven we lunched on a cup of bouillon and a
+roll. At two o'clock we had dinner, which consisted of soup and then
+chickens, potatoes, carrots and bread, with beer. At five we had tea,
+cake and toast, and at nine we had a supper of cold meat, boiled eggs,
+tea and bread and butter. Fräulein W. speaks English quite nicely, and
+is my medium of communication with her mother. I begin German lessons
+with her to-morrow. They both send you their compliments, and so you
+must return yours. They seem as kind as possible, and I think I am very
+fortunate in my boarding place.
+
+Be sure to direct your letters "Care Frau Geheimräthin W." (Mrs.
+Councillor W.), as the German ladies are very particular about their
+_titles_!
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _November 21, 1869_.
+
+Since I wrote to you not much of interest has occurred. I am delighted
+with Berlin, and am enjoying myself very much, though I am working hard.
+I am so thankful that all my sewing was done before I came, for I have
+not a minute to spare for it, and here it seems to me all the dresses
+fit so dreadfully. It would make me miserable to wear such looking
+clothes, and as I can't speak the language, the difficulties in the way
+of giving directions on the technicalities of dressmaking would be
+terrific. Tell C. he is very wise to continue his German conversation
+lessons with Madame P. Even the few that I took prove of immense
+assistance to me, as I can understand almost everything that is said to
+me, though I cannot answer back. He ought to make one of his lessons
+about shopping and droschkie driving, for it is very essential to know
+how to ask for things, and to be able to give directions in driving. I
+had a very funny experience with a droschkie the other day, but it would
+take too long to write it. Frau W. cannot understand English, and she
+gets dreadfully impatient when Fräulein A. and I speak it, and always
+says "_Deutsch_" in a sepulchral tone, so that I have to begin and say
+it all over again in German with A.'s help.
+
+When I got fairly settled I presented myself and my letters at the
+Bancrofts, the B's. and the A's., and was very kindly and cordially
+received by them all. Mrs. Bancroft and Mrs. B. have since called in
+return, and I have already been to a charming reception at the house of
+the latter, and to the grand American Thanksgiving dinner at the Hotel
+de Rome, at which Mr. Bancroft presided, and made very happy speeches
+both in English and German. I enjoyed both occasions extremely, and made
+some pleasant acquaintances. I have also been to one German tea-party
+with Frau W. and A., and there I had "the jolliest kind of a time."
+There were only twelve invited, but you would have supposed from the
+clatter that there were at least a hundred. At the American dinner there
+was nothing like the noise of conversation that this little handful kept
+up. Before supper it was rather stupid, for the men all retired to a
+room by themselves, where they sat with closed doors and played whist
+and smoked. It is not considered proper for ladies to play cards except
+at home, and I, of course, did not say much, for the excellent reason
+that I _couldn't_! At ten o'clock supper was announced, and the
+gentlemen came and took us in. Herr J. was my partner. He is a
+delightful man, though an elderly one, and knows no end of things, as he
+has spent his whole life in study and in travelling. He looks to me like
+a man of very sensitive organization, and of very delicate feelings. He
+is a tremendous republican, and a great radical in every respect, and
+has an unbounded admiration for America.
+
+As soon as every one was seated at the table with due form and ceremony,
+all began to talk as hard as they could, and you have no idea what a
+noise they made, and how it increased toward the end with the potent
+libations they had. The bill of fare was rather curious. We began with
+slices of hot tongue, with a sauce of chestnuts, and it was extremely
+nice, too. Then we had venison and boiled potatoes! Then we had a
+dessert consisting of fruit, and some delicious cake. There were several
+kinds of wine, and everybody drank the greatest quantity. The host and
+hostess kept jumping up and going round to everybody, saying: "But you
+drink nothing," and then they would insist upon filling up your glass. I
+don't dare to think how many times they filled mine, but it seemed to be
+etiquette to drink, and so I did as the rest. The repast ended with
+coffee, and then the gentlemen lit their cigars, and were in such an
+extremely cheerful frame of mind that they all began to sing, and I even
+saw two old fellows kiss each other! The venison was delicious, and
+nicer than any I ever ate. Herr J. was the only man in the room who
+could speak any English, and since then he takes a good deal of interest
+in me, and lends me books. Every Sunday Fran W. takes me to her sister's
+house to tea. I like to go because I hear so much German spoken there,
+and they all take a profound interest in my affairs. They know to a
+minute when I get a letter, and when I write one, and every incident of
+my daily life. It amuses them very much to see a real live wild Indian
+from America. I am soon going to another German party, and I look
+forward to it with much pleasure; not that the parties here give me the
+same feeling as at home, but they are amusing because they are so
+entirely different.
+
+There is so much to be seen and heard in Berlin that if one has but the
+money there is no end to one's resources. There are the opera and the
+Schauspielhaus every night, and beautiful concerts every evening, too.
+They say that the opera here is magnificent, and the scenery superb,
+and they have a wonderful ballet-troupe. So far, however, I have only
+been to one concert, and that was a sacred concert. But Joachim
+played--and Oh-h, what a tone he draws out of the violin! I could think
+of nothing but Mrs. Moulton's voice, as he _sighed_ out those
+exquisitely pathetic notes. He played something by Schumann which ended
+with a single note, and as he drew his bow across he produced so many
+shades that it was perfectly marvellous. I am going to hear him again on
+Sunday night, when he plays at Clara Schumann's concert. It will be a
+great concert, for she plays much. She will be assisted by Joachim,
+Müller, De Ahna, and by Joachim's wife, who has a beautiful voice and
+sings charmingly in the serious German style. Joachim himself is not
+only the greatest violinist in the world, but one of the greatest that
+ever lived. De Ahna is one of the first violinists in Germany, and
+Müller is one of the first 'cellists. In fact, this quartette cannot be
+matched in Europe--so you see what I am expecting!
+
+Tausig has not yet returned from his concert tour, and will not arrive
+before the 21st of December. I find Ehlert a splendid teacher, but very
+severe, and I am mortally afraid of him. Not that he is cross, but he
+exacts so much, and such a hopeless feeling of despair takes possession
+of me. His first lesson on touch taught me more than all my other
+lessons put together--though, to be sure, that is not saying much, as
+they were "few and far between." At present I am weltering in a sea of
+troubles. The girls in my class are three in number, and they all play
+so extraordinarily well that sometimes I think I can never catch up with
+them. I am the worst of all the scholars in Tausig's classes that I have
+heard, except one, and that is a young man. I know that Ehlert thinks I
+have talent, but, after all, talent must go to the wall before such
+_practice_ as these people have had, for most of them have studied a
+long time, and have been at the piano four and five hours a day.
+
+It is very interesting in the conservatory, for there are pupils there
+from all countries except France. Some of them seem to me splendid
+musicians. On Sunday morning (I am sorry to say) once in a month or six
+weeks, they have what they call a "Musical Reading." It is held in a
+piano-forte ware-room, and there all the scholars in the higher classes
+play, so I had to go. Many of the girls played magnificently, and I was
+amazed at the technique that they had, and at the artistic manner in
+which even very young girls rendered the most difficult music, and all
+without notes. It gave me a severe nervous headache just to hear them.
+But it was delightful to see them go at it. None of them had the least
+fear, and they laughed and chattered between the pieces, and when their
+turn came they marched up to the piano, sat down as bold as lions, and
+banged away so splendidly!
+
+You have no idea how hard they make Cramer's Studies here. Ehlert makes
+me play them tremendously _forte_, and as fast as I can go. My hand gets
+so tired that it is ready to break, and then I say that I cannot go on.
+"But you _must_ go on," he will say. It is the same with the scales. It
+seems to me that I play them so loud that I make the welkin ring, and he
+will say, "But you play always _piano_." And with all this rapidity he
+does not allow a note to be missed, and if you happen to strike a wrong
+one he looks so shocked that you feel ready to sink into the floor.
+Strange to say, I enjoy the lessons in _Zusammenspiel_ (duet-playing)
+very much, although it is all reading at sight. Four of us sit down at
+two pianos and read duets at sight. Lesmann is a pleasant man, and he
+always talks so fast that he amuses me very much. He always counts and
+beats time most vigorously, and bawls in your ear, "_Eins--zwei!
+Eins--zwei!_" or sometimes, "_Eins!_" only, on the first beat of every
+bar. When, occasionally, we all get out, he looks at us through his
+glasses, and then such a volley of words as he hurls at us is wonderful
+to hear. I never can help laughing, though I take good care not to let
+him see me.
+
+But Weitzmann, the Harmony professor, is the funniest of all. He is the
+dearest old man in the world, and it is impossible for him to be cross;
+but he takes so much pains and trouble to make his class understand, and
+he has the most peculiar way of talking imaginable, and accents
+everything he says tremendously. I go to him because Ehlert says I must,
+but as I know nothing of the theory of music (and if I did, the names
+are so entirely different in German that I never should know what they
+are in English) it is extremely difficult for me to understand him at
+all. He knew I was an American, and let me pass for one or two lessons
+without asking me any questions, but finally his German love of
+thoroughness has got the better of him, and he is now beginning to take
+me in hand. At the last lesson he wrote some chords on the blackboard,
+and after holding forth for some time he wound up with his usual
+"_Verstehen Sie wohl--Ja?_ (Do you understand--Yes?)" to the class, who
+all shouted "_Ja_," except me. I kept a discreet silence, thinking he
+would not notice, but he suddenly turned on me and said, "_Verstehen_
+Sie _wohl--Ja?_" I was as puzzled what to say as the Pharisees were when
+they were asked if the baptism of John were of heaven or of men. I knew
+that if I said "_Ja_," he might call on me for a proof, and that if I
+said "_Nein_," he would undertake to enlighten me, and that I should not
+understand him.
+
+After an instant's consideration I concluded the latter course was the
+safer, and so I said, boldly, "_Nein_." "_Kommen Sie hierher!_ (Come
+here!)" said he, and to my horror I had to step up to the blackboard in
+front of this large class. He harangued me for some minutes, and then
+writing some notes on the bass clef, he put the chalk into my hands and
+told me to write. Not one word had I understood, and after staring
+blankly at the board I said, "_Ich verstehe nicht_ (I don't
+understand.)" "_Nein?_" said he, and carefully went over all his
+explanation again. This time I managed to extract that he wished me to
+write the succession of chords that those bass notes indicated, and to
+tie what notes I could. A second time he put the chalk into my hands,
+and told me to write the chords. "Heaven only knows what they are!"
+thinks I to myself. In my desperation, however, I guessed at the first
+one, and uttered the names of the notes in trembling accents, expecting
+to have a cannon fired off at my head. Thanks to my lucky star, it
+happened to be right. I wrote it on the blackboard, and then as my wits
+sharpened I found the other chords from that one, and wrote them all
+down right. I drew a long breath of relief as he released me from his
+clutches, and sat down hardly believing I had done it. I have not now
+the least idea what it was he made me do, but I suppose it will come to
+me in the course of the year! As he does not understand a word of
+English, I cannot say anything to him unless I can say it in German, and
+as he is determined to make me learn Harmony, it would be of no use to
+explain that I did not know what he was talking about, for he would
+begin all over again, and go on _ad infinitum_. I have got a book on the
+Theory of Music, which I am reading with Fräulein W. She has studied
+with Weitzmann, also, and when I have caught up with the class I shall
+go on very easily. I quite adore Weitzmann. He has the kindest old face
+imaginable, and he hammers away so indefatigably at his pupils! The
+professors I have described are all thorough and well-known musicians of
+Berlin, and I wonder that people could tell us before I came away, and
+really seem to believe it, "that I could learn as well in an American
+conservatory as in a German one." In comparison with the drill I am now
+receiving, my Boston teaching was mere play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Clara Schumann and Joachim. The American Minister's. The Museum.
+     The Conservatory. The Opera. Tausig. Christmas.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _December 12, 1869_.
+
+I heard Clara Schumann on Sunday, and on Tuesday evening, also. She is a
+most wonderful artist. In the first concert she played a quartette by
+Schumann, and you can imagine how lovely it was under the treatment of
+Clara Schumann for the piano, Joachim for the first violin, De Ahna for
+the second, and Müller for the 'cello. It was perfect, and I was in
+raptures. Madame Schumann's selection for the two concerts was a very
+wide one, and gave a full exhibition of her powers in every kind of
+music. The Impromptu by Schumann, Op. 90, was exquisite. It was full of
+passion and very difficult. The second of the Songs without Words, by
+Mendelssohn, was the most fairy-like performance. It is one of those
+things that must be tossed off with the greatest grace and smoothness,
+and it requires the most beautiful and delicate technique. She played it
+to perfection. The terrific Scherzo by Chopin she did splendidly, but
+she kept the great octave passages in the bass a little too subordinate,
+I thought, and did not give it quite boldly enough for my taste, though
+it was extremely artistic. Clara Schumann's playing is very objective.
+She seems to throw herself into the music, instead of letting the music
+take possession of her. She gives you the most exquisite pleasure with
+every note she touches, and has a wonderful conception and variety in
+playing, but she seldom whirls you off your feet.
+
+At the second concert she was even better than at the first, if that is
+possible. She seemed full of fire, and when she played Bach, she ought
+to have been crowned with diamonds! Such _noble_ playing I never heard.
+In fact you are all the time impressed with the nobility and breadth of
+her style, and the comprehensiveness of her treatment, and oh, if you
+_could_ hear her _scales_! In short, there is nothing more to be desired
+in her playing, and she has every quality of a great artist. Many people
+say that Tausig is far better, but I cannot believe it. He may have more
+technique and more power, but nothing else I am sure. Everybody raves
+over his playing, and I am getting quite impatient for his return, which
+is expected next week. I send you Madame Schumann's photograph, which is
+exactly like her. She is a large, very German-looking woman, with dark
+hair and superb neck and arms. At the last concert she was dressed in
+black velvet, low body and short sleeves, and when she struck powerful
+chords, those large white arms came down with a certain splendor.
+
+As for Joachim, he is perfectly magnificent, and has amazing _power_.
+When he played his solo in that second Chaconne of Bach's, you could
+scarcely believe it was only one violin. He has, like Madame Schumann,
+the greatest variety of tone, only on the violin the shades can be made
+far more delicate than on the piano.
+
+I thought the second movement of Schumann's Quartette perhaps as
+extraordinary as any part of Clara Schumann's performance. It was very
+rapid, very _staccato_, and _pianissimo_ all the way through. Not a note
+escaped her fingers, and she played with so much magnetism that one
+could scarcely breathe until it was finished. You know nothing can be
+more difficult than to play staccato so very softly where there is great
+execution also. Both of the sonatas for violin and piano which were
+played by Madame Schumann and Joachim, and especially the one in A
+minor, by Beethoven, were divine. Both parts were equally well
+sustained, and they played with so much fire--as if one inspired the
+other. It was worth a trip across the Atlantic just to hear those two
+performances.
+
+The Sing-Akademie, where all the best concerts are given, is not a very
+large hall, but it is beautifully proportioned, and the acoustic is
+perfect. The frescoes are very delicate, and on the left are boxes all
+along, which add much to the beauty of the hall, with their scarlet and
+gold flutings. Clara Schumann is a great favorite here, and there was
+such a rush for seats that, though we went early for our tickets, all
+the good parquet seats were gone, and we had to get places on the
+_estrade_, or place where the chorus sits--when there is one. But I
+found it delightful for a piano concert, for you can be as close to the
+performer as you like, and at the same time see the faces of the
+audience. I saw ever so many people that I knew, and we kept bowing away
+at each other.
+
+Just think how convenient it is here with regard to public amusements,
+for ladies can go anywhere alone! You take a droschkie and they drive
+you anywhere for five groschen, which is about fifteen cents. When you
+get into the concert hall you go into the _garde-robe_ and take off your
+things, and hand them over to the care of the woman who stands there,
+and then you walk in and sit down comfortably as you would in a parlour,
+and are not roasted in your hat and cloak while at the concert, and
+chilled when you go out, as we are in America. Their programmes, too,
+are not so unconscionably long as ours, and, in short, their whole
+method of concert-giving is more rational than with us. I always enjoy
+the garde-robe, for if you have acquaintances you are sure to meet them,
+and you have no idea how exciting it is in a foreign city to see anybody
+you know.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _December 19, 1869_.
+
+I suppose you are muttering maledictions on my head for not writing, but
+I am so busy that I have no time to answer my letters, which are
+accumulating upon my hands at a terrible rate. This week I have been out
+every night but one, so that I have had to do all my practicing and
+German and Harmony lessons in the day-time; and these, with my daily
+hour and a half at the conservatory, have been as much as I could
+manage.
+
+On Monday I went to a party at the Bancroft's, which I enjoyed
+extremely. It was a very brilliant affair, and the toilettes were
+superb. At the entrance I was ushered in by a very fine servant dressed
+in livery. A second man showed me the dressing-room, where my bewildered
+sight first rested on a lot of Chinamen in festive attire. I could not
+make out for a second what they were, and I thought to myself, "Is it
+possible I have mistaken the invitation, and this is a masquerade?"
+Another glance showed me that they were Chinese, and it turned out that
+Mr. Burlingame, the Chinese Minister, was there, and these men were part
+of his suite. The ladies and gentlemen had the same dressing-room, which
+was a new feature in parties to me, and as we took off our things the
+servant took them and gave us a ticket for them, as they do at the
+opera. I should think there were about a hundred persons present. There
+were a great many handsome women, and they were beautifully dressed and
+much be-diamonded and pearled. Corn-colour seemed to be the fashion, and
+there were more silks of that colour than any other.
+
+Mr. Burlingame seemed to be a very genial, easy man. I was not presented
+to him, but stood very near him part of the time. He looks upon the
+introduction of the Chinese into our country as a great blessing, and
+laughs at the idea of it being an evil. He says that the reason
+railroads can't be introduced into China is because the whole country is
+one vast grave-yard, and you can't dig any depth without unearthing
+human bones, so that there would be a revolution on the part of the
+people if it were done now, but it will gradually be brought about. He
+travels with a suite of forty attendants, and says he has got all his
+treaties here arranged to his wishes, and that Prussia has promised to
+follow the United States in everything that they have agreed on with
+China. He is going to resign his office in a year and go back to
+America, where he wants to get into politics again. Mr. Bancroft
+introduced many of the ladies to the Chinese, one of whom could speak
+English, and he interpreted to the others. It was very quaint to see
+them all make their deep bows in silence when some one was presented to
+them. They were in the Chinese costume--Turkish trousers, white silk
+coats, or blouses, and red turbans, and their hair braided down their
+backs in a long tail that nearly touched their heels.
+
+On Thursday I went to Dr. A.'s to dinner. He seems to be a very
+influential man here, and is a great favorite with the Americans. He has
+a great big heart, and I suspect that is the reason of it. Mrs. A., too,
+is very lovely. I saw there Mr. Theodore Fay, who used to be our
+minister in Switzerland, and who is also an author. He is very
+interesting, and the most earnest Christian I ever met. He has the
+tenderest sympathies in the world, and in a man this is very striking.
+He has a high and beautiful forehead, and a certain spirituality of
+expression that appeals to you at once and touches you, also. At least
+he makes a peculiar impression on _me_. There is something entirely
+different about him from other men, but I don't know what it is, unless
+it be his deep religious feeling, which shines out unconsciously.
+
+Last week I made my first visit to the Museum. It is one of the great
+sights of Berlin, but it is so immense that I only saw a few rooms. In
+fact there are two Museums--an old and a new. I was in the new one. It
+is a perfect treasure house, and the floors alone are a study. All are
+inlaid with little coloured marbles, and every one is different in
+pattern. One of the most beautiful of the rooms was a large circular
+dome-roofed apartment round which were placed the statues of the gods,
+and in the centre stood a statue in bronze of one of the former German
+kings in a Roman suit of armour. Half way up from the floor ran round a
+little gallery in which you could stand and look down over the railing,
+and here were placed on the walls Raphael's cartoons, which are
+fac-similes of those in the Vatican, and are all woven in arras. They
+are very wonderful, and you feel as if you could not look at them long
+enough. The contrast is impressive as you look down and see all the
+heathen statues standing on the marble floor, each one like a separate
+sphinx, and then look up and see all the Christian subjects of Raphael.
+The statues are so cold and white and distant, and the pictures are so
+warm and bright in colour. They seem to express the difference between
+the ancient and the modern religions. We went through the rooms of Greek
+and Roman statues, of which there is an immense number, and on the walls
+are Greek and Italian landscapes, all done by celebrated painters.
+
+We had to pass through these rooms rather hastily in order to get a
+glimpse of the "Treppen Halle," which is the place where the two grand
+stair-cases meet that carry you into the upper rooms of the Museum.
+This is magnificent, and is all gilding and decoration. An immense
+statue stands by each door, and on the wall are six great pictures by
+Kaulbach, three on each side. "The Last Judgment," of which you're seen
+photographs, is one of them. I ought to go to the Museum often to see it
+properly, but it is such a long distance off that I can't get the time.
+Berlin is a very large city, and the distances are as great as they are
+in New York.
+
+At the last "Reading" at the conservatory the four best scholars played
+last. One of them was an American, from San Francisco, a Mr. Trenkel,
+but who has German parents. He plays exquisitely, and has just such a
+poetic musical conception as Dresel, but a beautiful technique, also. He
+is a thorough artist, and he looks it, too, as he is dark and pale, and
+very striking. I always like to see him play, for he droops his dark
+eyes, and his high pale forehead is thrown back, and stands out so well
+defined over his black brows. His expression is very serious and his
+manner very quiet, and he has a sort of fascination about him. He is a
+particular favorite of Tausig's.
+
+After he played, came a young lady who has been a pupil of Von Bülow for
+two years. She plays splendidly, and I could have torn my hair with envy
+when she got up, and Ehlert went up to her and shook her hand and told
+her before the whole school that she had "_real_ talent." After her came
+_my_ favorite, little Fräulein Timanoff, who sat down and did still
+better. She is a little Russian, only fifteen, and is still in short
+dresses. She has almost white hair, it is so light, and she combs it
+straight back and wears it in two long braids down her back, which makes
+her look very childish. It is really wonderful to see her! She takes her
+seat with the greatest confidence, and plays with all the boldness of an
+artist.
+
+Almost all the scholars in Tausig's class are studying to play in
+public, and I should think he would be very proud of all those that I
+have heard. There are many scholars in the conservatory, but he teaches
+only the most advanced. He only returned to Berlin on Saturday, and I
+have not yet seen him, though I am dying to do so, for all the Germans
+are wild over his playing. The girls in his class are mortally afraid of
+him, and when he gets angry he tells them they play "like a rhinoceros,"
+and many other little remarks equally pleasing.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _January 11, 1870_.
+
+Since my last letter I have been quite secluded, and have seen nothing
+of the gay world. I have been to the opera twice--once to "_Fantaska_,"
+a grand ballet, and the second time to "_Trovatore_." The opera house
+here is magnificent, and I would that I could go to it every week. It is
+extremely difficult to get tickets to it, as the rich Jews manage to get
+the monopoly of them and the opera house is crowded every night. It is
+the most brilliant building, and so exquisitely painted! All the heads
+and figures of the Muses and portraits of composers and poets which
+decorate it, are so soft and so beautifully done. The curtain even is
+charming. It represents the sea, and great sea monsters are swimming
+about with nymphs and Cupids and all sorts of things, and one lovely
+nymph floats in the air with a thin gauzy veil which trails along after
+her. The scenery and dresses are superb, and I never imagined anything
+to equal them. The orchestra, too, plays divinely.
+
+The singing is the only thing which could be improved. The Lucca, who is
+the grand attraction, is a pretty little creature, but I did not find
+her voice remarkable. The Berlinese worship her, and whenever Lucca
+sings there is a rush for the tickets. Wachtel and Niemann are the star
+singers among the men. Niemann I have not heard, but Wachtel we should
+not rave over in America. I am in doubt whether indeed the Germans know
+what the best singing is. They have most wonderful choruses, but when it
+comes to soloists they have none that are really great--like Parepa and
+Adelaide Phillips; at least, that is my judgment after hearing the best
+singers in Berlin, though as the voice is not my "instrument," I will
+not be too confident about it. Everything else is so far beyond what we
+have at home that perhaps I unconsciously expect the climax of all--the
+solo singing, to be proportionally finer also.
+
+They have beautiful ballet-dancers here, though. There is one little
+creature named Fräulein David, who is a wonderful artist. She does such
+steps that it turns one's head to see her. She is as light as down, and
+so extremely graceful that when you watch her floating about to the
+enchanting ballet music, it is too captivating. There were four other
+dancers nearly as good, who were all dressed exactly alike in white
+dresses trimmed with pink satin. They would come out first, and dance
+all together, sometimes separately and sometimes forming a figure in the
+middle of the stage. Then suddenly little David, who was dressed in
+white and blue, would bound forward. The others would immediately break
+up and retire to the side of the stage, and she would execute a
+wonderful _pas seul_. Then _she_ would retire, and the others would come
+forward again, and so it went. It was perfectly beautiful. Finally they
+all danced together and did everything exactly alike, though little
+David could always bend lower, and take the "positions" (as we used to
+say at Dio Lewis's,) better than all the rest.
+
+On Friday I am going to hear Rubinstein play. I suppose he will give a
+beautiful concert, as he and Bülow, Tausig and Clara Schumann are the
+grand celebrities now on the piano, Liszt having given up playing in
+public. After our lesson was over yesterday, Ehlert took his leave, and
+left us to wait for TAUSIG--my dear!--who was to hear us each play. He
+came in very late, and just before it was time to give his own lesson.
+He is precisely like the photograph I sent you, but is very short
+indeed--too short, in fact, for good looks--but he has a remarkably
+vivid expression of the eyes. He came in, and, scarcely looking at us,
+and without taking the trouble to bow even, he turned on me and said,
+imperiously, "_Spielen Sie mir Etwas vor_. (Play something for me.)" I
+got up and played first an _Etude_, and then he asked for the scales,
+and after I had played a few he told me I "had talent," and to come to
+his lessons, and I would learn much. I went accordingly the next
+afternoon. There were two girls only in the class, but they were both
+far advanced. I had never heard either of them play before. The second
+one played a fearfully difficult concerto by Chopin, which I once heard
+from Mills. It is exquisitely beautiful, and she did it very well. From
+time to time Tausig would sweep her off the stool, and play himself, and
+he is indeed a perfect wonder! If, as they say, Liszt's trill is "like
+the warble of a bird," his is as much so. It is not surprising that he
+is so celebrated, and I long to hear him in concert, where he will do
+full justice to his powers. He thrills you to the very marrow of your
+bones. He is divorced from his wife, and I think it not improbable that
+she could not live with him, for he looks as haughty and despotic as
+Lucifer, though he has a very winning way with him when he likes. His
+playing is spoken of as _sans pareil_.
+
+I spent a very pleasant Christmas. The family had a pretty little tree,
+and we all gave each other presents. It was charming to go out in the
+streets the week before. The Germans make the greatest time over
+Christmas, and the streets are full of Christmas trees, the shops are
+crammed with lovely things, and there are little booths erected all
+along the sidewalks filled with toys. They have special cakes and
+confections that they prepare only at this season.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     Tausig and Rubinstein. Tausig's Pupils. The Bancrofts. A German
+     Radical.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _February 8, 1870_.
+
+I have heard both Rubinstein and Tausig in concert since I last wrote.
+They are both wonderful, but in quite a different way. Rubinstein has
+the greatest power and _abandon_ in playing that you can imagine, and is
+extremely exciting. I never saw a man to whom it seemed so easy to play.
+It is as if he were just sporting with the piano, and could do what he
+pleased with it. Tausig, on the contrary, is extremely restrained, and
+has not quite enthusiasm enough, but he is absolutely _perfect_, and
+plays with the greatest expression. He is pre-eminent in grace and
+delicacy of execution, but seems to hold back his power in a concert
+room, which is very singular, for when he plays to his classes in the
+conservatory he seems all passion. His conception is so very refined
+that sometimes it is a little too much so, while Rubinstein is
+occasionally too precipitate. I have not yet decided which I like best,
+but in my estimation Clara Schumann as a whole is superior to either,
+although she has not their unlimited technique.
+
+This was Tausig's programme:
+
+    1.     Sonate Op. 53,                  Beethoven.
+
+    2. a.  Bourrée,                        Bach.
+       b.  Presto Scherzando,              Mendelssohn.
+       c.  Barcarole Op. 60,         }
+       d.  Ballade    Op. 47,        }     Chopin.
+       e.  Zwei Mazurkas Op. 59 u 33,}
+       f.  Aufforderung zum Tanz,          Weber.
+
+    3.     Kreisleriana Op. 16, 8 Phantasie Stücke,          Schumann.
+    4. a.  Ständchen von Shakespeare nach Schubert,     }     Liszt.
+       b.  Ungarische Rhapsodie,                        }
+
+Tausig's octave playing is the most extraordinary I ever heard. The last
+great effect on his programme was in the Rhapsody by Liszt, in an octave
+variation. He first played it so _pianissimo_ that you could only just
+hear it, and then he repeated the variation and gave it tremendously
+_forte_. It was colossal! His scales surpass Clara Schumann's, and it
+seems as if he played with velvet fingers, his touch is so very soft. He
+played the great C major Sonata by Beethoven--Moscheles' favorite, you
+know. His conception of it was not brilliant, as I expected it would be,
+but very calm and dreamy, and the first movement especially he took very
+_piano_. He did it most beautifully, but I was not quite satisfied with
+the last movement, for I expected he would make a grand climax with
+those passionate trills, and he did not. Chopin he plays divinely, and
+that little Bourrée of Bach's that I used to play, was magical. He
+played it like lightning, and made it perfectly bewitching.
+
+Altogether, he is a great man. But Clara Schumann always puts herself
+_en rapport_ with you immediately. Tausig and Rubinstein do not sway you
+as she does, and, therefore, I think she is the greater interpreter,
+although I imagine the Germans would not agree with me. Tausig has such
+a little hand that I wonder he has been able to acquire his immense
+virtuosity. He is only thirty years old, and is much younger than
+Rubinstein or Bülow.
+
+The day after Tausig's concert I went, as usual, to hear him give the
+lesson to his best class of girls. I got there a little before the hour,
+and the girls were in the dressing-room waiting for the young men to be
+through with their lesson. They were talking about the concert. "Was it
+not beautiful?" said little Timanoff, to me; "I did not sleep the whole
+night after it!"--a touch of sentiment that quite surprised me in that
+small personage, and made me feel some compunctions, as I had slept
+soundly myself. "I have practiced five hours to-day already," she added.
+Just then the young men came out of the class-room and we passed into
+it. Tausig was standing by the piano. "Begin!" said he, to Timanoff,
+more shortly even than usual; "I trust you have brought me a study
+_this_ time." He always insists upon a study in addition to the piece.
+Timanoff replied in the affirmative, and proceeded to open Chopin's
+_Etudes_. She played the great A minor "Winter Wind" study, and most
+magnificently, too, starting off with the greatest brilliancy and "go."
+I was perfectly amazed at such a feat from such a child, and expected
+that Tausig would exclaim with admiration. Not so that Rhadamanthus. He
+heard it through without comment or correction, and when Timanoff had
+finished, simply remarked very composedly, "So! Have you taken the
+_next_ Etude, also?" as if the great A minor were not enough for one
+meal! It is eight pages long to begin with, and there is no let-up to
+the difficulty all the way through. Afterward, however, he told the
+young men that he "could not have done it better" himself.
+
+Tausig is so hasty and impatient that to be in his classes must be a
+fearful ordeal. He will not bear the slightest fault. The last time I
+went into his class to hear him teach he was dreadful. Fräulein H.
+began, and she has remarkable talent, and is far beyond me. She would
+not play _piano_ enough to suit him, and finally he stamped his foot at
+her, snatched her hand from the piano, and said: "_Will_ you play
+_piano_ or not, for if not we will go no farther?" The second girl sat
+down and played a few lines. He made her begin over again several times,
+and finally came up and took her music away and slapped it down on the
+piano,--"You have been studying this for weeks and you can't play a note
+of it; practice it for a month and then you can bring it to me again,"
+he said.
+
+The third was Fräulein Timanoff, who is a little genius, I think. She
+brought a Sonata by Schubert--the lovely one in A minor--and by the way
+he behaved Tausig must have a particular feeling about that particular
+Sonata. Timanoff began running it off in her usual nimble style, having
+practiced it evidently every minute of the time when she was not
+asleep, since the last lesson. She had not proceeded far down the first
+page when he stopped her, and began to fuss over the expression. She
+began again, but this time with no better luck. A third time, but still
+he was dissatisfied, though he suffered her to go on a little farther.
+He kept stopping her every moment in the most tantalizing and
+exasperating manner. If it had been I, I should have cried, but Timanoff
+is well broken, and only flushed deeply to the very tips of her small
+ears. From an apple blossom she changed to a carnation. Tausig grew more
+and more savage, and made her skip whole pages in his impatience. "Play
+here!" he would say, in the most imperative tone, pointing to a half or
+whole page farther on. "This I cannot hear!--Go on farther!--It is too
+bad to be listened to!" Finally, he struck the music with the back of
+his hand, and exclaimed, in a despairing way, "_Kind, es liegt eine
+Seele darin. Weiss du nicht es liegt eine_ SEELE _darin_? (Child,
+there's a soul in the piece. Don't you know there is a _soul_ in it?)"
+To the little Timanoff, who has no soul, and who is not sufficiently
+experienced to counterfeit one, this speech evidently conveyed no
+particular idea. She ran on as glibly as ever till Tausig could endure
+no more, and shut up the music. I was much disappointed, as it was new
+to me, and I like to hear Timanoff's little fingers tinkle over the
+keys, "Seele" or no "Seele." She has a most accurate and dainty way of
+doing everything, and somehow, in her healthy little brain I hardly wish
+for _Seele_!
+
+Last of all Fräulein L. played, and she alone suited Tausig. She is a
+Swede, and is the best scholar he has, but she has such frightfully ugly
+hands, and holds them so terribly, that when I look at her I cannot
+enjoy her playing. Tausig always praises her very much, and she is
+tremendously ambitious.
+
+Tausig has a charming face, full of expression and very sensitive. He is
+extremely sharp-sighted, and has eyes in the back of his head, I
+believe. He is far too small and too despotic to be fascinating,
+however, though he has a sort of captivating way with him when he is in
+a good humor.
+
+I was dreadfully sorry to hear of poor Gottschalk's death. He had a
+golden touch, and equal to any in the world, I think. But what a
+romantic way to die!--to fall senseless at his instrument, while he was
+playing "_La Morte_." It was very strange. If anything more is in the
+papers about him you must send it to me, for the infatuation that I and
+99,999 other American girls once felt for him, still lingers in my
+breast!
+
+On Saturday night I went for the first time to hear the Berlin Symphony
+Kapelle. It is composed only of artists, and is the most splendid music
+imaginable. De Ahna, for instance, is one of the violinists, and he is
+not far behind Joachim. We have no conception of such an orchestra in
+America.[A] The Philharmonic of New York approaches it, but is still a
+long way off. This orchestra is so perfect, and plays with such
+precision, that you can't realize that there are any performers at all.
+It is just a great wave of sound that rolls over you as smooth as glass.
+As the concert halls are much smaller here, the music is much louder,
+and every man not only plays _piano_ and _forte_ where it is marked, but
+he draws the _tone_ out of his violin. They have the greatest pathos,
+consequently, in the soft parts, and overwhelming power in the loud.
+Where great expression is required the conductor almost ceases to beat
+time, and it seems as if the performers took it _ad libitum_; but they
+understand each other so well that they play like one man. It is _too_
+ecstatic! I observed the greatest difference in the horn playing.
+Instead of coming in in a monotonous sort of way as it does at home, and
+always with the same degree of loudness, here, when it is solo, it
+begins round and smooth and full, and then gently modulates until the
+tone seems to sigh itself out, dying away at last with a little tremolo
+that is perfectly melting. I never before heard such an effect. When the
+trumpets come in it is like the crack of doom, and you should hear the
+way they play the drums. I never _was_ satisfied with the way they
+strike the drums in New York and Boston, for it always seemed as if they
+thought the parchment would break. Here, sometimes they give such a
+sharp stroke that it startles me, though, of course, it is not often.
+But it adds immensely to the accent, and makes your heart beat, I can
+tell you. They played Schubert's great symphony, and Beethoven's in B
+major, and I could scarcely believe my own ears at the difference
+between this orchestra and ours. It is as great as between---- and
+Tausig.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _March 4, 1870_.
+
+Tausig is off to Russia to-day on a concert tour, and will not return
+until the 1st of May. Out of six months he has been in Berlin about two
+and a half! However, as I am not yet in his class it doesn't affect me
+much, but I should think his scholars would be provoked at such long
+absences. That is the worst of having such a great artist for a master.
+I believe we are to have no vacation in the summer though, and that he
+has promised to remain here from May until November without going off.
+Ehlert and Tausig have had a grand quarrel, and Ehlert is going to leave
+the conservatory in April. I am very sorry, for he is an admirable
+teacher, and I like him extremely.
+
+We had another Musical Reading on Sunday, at which I played, but all the
+conservatory classes were there, and all the teachers, with Tausig,
+also, so it was a pretty hard ordeal. The girls said I turned deadly
+pale when I sat down to the piano, and well I might, for here you cannot
+play any thing that the scholars have not either played themselves or
+are perfectly familiar with, so they criticise you without mercy. Tausig
+plays so magnificently that you know beforehand that a thing can never
+be more than comparatively good in his eyes. Fräulein L. is the only one
+of his pupils that plays to suit him. I do not like her playing so much
+myself, because it sounds as if she had tried to imitate him
+exactly--which she probably does. It does not seem spontaneous, and she
+is an affected creature. They all think 'the world' of her at the
+conservatory, and I suppose she _is_ quite extraordinary; but I prefer
+Fräulein Timanoff--"_die kleine Person_," as Tausig calls her--and she
+is, indeed, a "little person." On Sunday Fräulein L. played the first
+part of a Sonata by Chopin, and Tausig was quite enchanted with her
+performance. I thought he was going to embrace her, he jumped up so
+impetuously and ran over to her. He declared that it could not be better
+played, and said he would not hear anything else after that, and so the
+school was dismissed, although several had not played that expected to
+do so.
+
+Tausig has one scholar who is a very singular girl--the Fräulein H. I
+mentioned to you before, who has studied with Bülow. She is half French
+and half German, and speaks both languages. She is full of talent and
+cannot be over eighteen, but she is the most intense character, and is a
+perfect child of nature. One can't help smiling at everything she does,
+because she goes at everything so hard and so unconsciously. When the
+other girls are playing she folds her arms and plays with her fingers
+against her sides all the time, and when her turn comes she seizes her
+music, jumps up, and rushes for the piano as fast as she can. She hasn't
+the least timidity, and on Sunday when Tausig called out her name he
+scarcely got the words out before she said, "_Ja_," to the great
+amusement of the class (for none of us answered to our names) and ran to
+the piano.
+
+She sat down with the chair half crooked, and almost on the side of it,
+but she never stopped to arrange herself, but dashed off a prelude out
+of her own head, and then played her piece. When she got through she
+never changed countenance, but was back in her seat before you could say
+"Jack Robinson." She is as passionate as Tausig, and so they usually
+have a scene over her lesson. He is always either half amused at her or
+very angry, and is terribly severe with her. When he stamps his foot at
+her she makes up a face, and the blood rushes up into her head, and I
+believe she would beat him if she dared. She always plays as impetuously
+as she does everything else, and then he stops his ears and tells her
+she makes too much "_Spectakel_" (his favorite expression). Then she
+begins over again two or three times, but always in the same way. He
+snatches the music from the piano and tells her that is enough. Then the
+class bursts out laughing and she goes to her seat and cries. But she is
+too proud to let the other girls see her wipe her eyes, and so she sits
+up straight, and tries to look unconcerned, but the tears trickle down
+her cheeks one after the other, and drop off her chin all the rest of
+the hour. By the time she has had a piece for two lessons she comes to
+the third, and at last she has managed to tone down enough, and then she
+plays it splendidly. She is a savage creature. The girls tell me that
+one time she sat down to the piano (a concert-grand) with such violence
+as to push the instrument to one side, and began to play with such
+vehemence that she burst the sleeve out of her dress behind! She is
+going to be an artist, and I told her she must come to America to give
+concerts. She said "_Ja_," and immediately wanted to know where I lived,
+so she could come and see me. I think she will make a capital concert
+player, for she is always excited by an audience, and she has immense
+power. I am a mere baby to her in strength. Perhaps when she is ten
+years older she will be able to restrain herself within just limits, and
+to put in the light and shade as Fräulein L. does.
+
+Since I last wrote I have been to hear Rubinstein again. He is the
+greatest sensation player I know of, and, like Gottschalk, has all sorts
+of tricks of his own. His grand aim is to produce an _effect_, so it is
+dreadfully exciting to hear him, and at his last concert the first piece
+he played--a terrific composition by Schubert--gave me such a violent
+headache that I couldn't hear the rest of the performance with any
+pleasure. He has a gigantic spirit in him, and is extremely poetic and
+original, but for an entire concert he is too much. Give me Rubinstein
+for a few pieces, but Tausig for a whole evening. Rubinstein doesn't
+care how many notes he misses, provided he can bring out his conception
+and make it vivid enough. Tausig strikes _every_ note with rigid
+exactness, and perhaps his very perfection makes him at times a little
+cold. Rubinstein played Schubert's Erl-König, arranged by Liszt,
+_gloriously_. Where the child is so frightened, his hands flew all over
+the piano, and absolutely made it shriek with terror. It was enough to
+freeze you to hear it.
+
+Last week I went to a party at Mrs. Bancroft's in honour of Washington's
+birthday, and had a lovely time, as I always do when I go there.
+Bismarck was present, and wore a coat all decorated with stars and
+orders. He is a splendid looking man, and is tall and imposing. No one
+could be kinder than Mr. Bancroft. He and Mrs. Bancroft live in a
+beautiful house, furnished in perfect taste and full of lovely pictures
+and things, and they entertain most charmingly. They seem to do their
+utmost for the Americans who are in Berlin, and I am very proud of our
+minister. His reputation as our national historian, together with his
+German culture and early German associations, all combine to render him
+an admirable representative of our country to this haughty kingdom, and
+I hear that he is very popular with its selfsatisfied citizens. As for
+Mrs. Bancroft, one could hardly be more elegant, or better suited to the
+position. Mr. Bancroft is passionately fond of music, and knows what
+good music is,--which is of course an additional title to _my_ high
+opinion!
+
+The other day Herr J. called for me to go and take a walk through the
+Thier-Garten, and see the skating. It was the first time I had been
+there, though it is not far from us, and I was delighted with it. It is
+the natural forest, with beautiful walks and drives cut through it, and
+statues here and there. We went to see the skating, and it was a lovely
+sight. The band was playing, and ladies and gentlemen were skating in
+time to the waltz. Many ladies skate very elegantly, and go along with
+their hands in their muffs, swaying first to one side and then to the
+other. It is grace itself. Carriages and horses pranced slowly around
+the edge of the pond, and at last the Prince and Princess Royal came
+along, drawn by two splendid black horses.
+
+The carriage stopped and they got out to walk. "Now," said I to Herr J.,
+"you must take off your hat"--for everybody takes off his hat to the
+Crown Prince. As they passed us he did take it off, but blushed up to
+his ears, which I thought rather odd, until he said, in a half-ashamed
+tone, "That is the first time in my life that I ever took off my hat to
+a Prince." "Well, what did you do it for?" said I. "Because you told me
+to," said he. He is such a red hot republican, that even such a little
+act of respect as this grated upon him! I only told him in fun, any way,
+but I was very much amused to see how he took it. He always raves over
+the United States, and says we are the greatest country in the world. He
+is a strange man, and you ought to hear his theory of religion. He sets
+the Bible entirely aside--like most German cultivated men. We were
+talking of it one night, and he said, "We won't speak of that
+_blockhead_ Peter, stupid fisherman that he was! but we will pass on to
+Paul, who was a man of some education." David, he calls "that rascal
+David, etc." Of course, I hold to my own belief, but I can't help
+laughing to hear him, it sounds so ridiculous. The world never had any
+beginning, he says, and there is no resurrection. We live only for the
+benefit of the next generation, and therefore it is necessary to lead
+good lives. We inherit the result of our father's labours, and our
+children will inherit ours. So we shall go on until the human race comes
+to a state of perfection. "And then what?" said I. Oh--then, he didn't
+know. Perhaps the world would explode, and go off in meteors. "We _do_
+know," said he, "that there are lost stars. Occasionally a star
+disappears and we can't tell what has become of it; and perhaps the
+earth will become a wandering star, or a comet. The intervals between
+the stars are so great as to admit of a world wandering about--and there
+is no police in those regions, I fancy," concluded he, with a shrug of
+his shoulders. "Do you really _believe_ that, Herr J.?" I asked. "Oh,"
+said he, "we won't speak about _beliefs_. Now we are _speculating_!" He
+is a delightful companion, and I think he is scrupulously conscientious.
+Though he does not profess the Christian faith, he acts up to Christian
+principles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Opera and Oratorio in Berlin. A Typical American. Prussian
+     Rudeness. Conservatory Changes. Easter.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _March 20, 1870_.
+
+On Wednesday the Bancrofts most kindly called for me to go to the opera
+with them. They came in their carriage, with two horses and footmen, so
+it was very jolly, and we bowled rapidly through Unter den Linden (the
+Broadway of Berlin), in rather a different manner from the pace I
+usually crawl along in a droschkie. They had fine opera glasses, of
+course, and we took our seats just as the overture was about to begin,
+so that everything was charming except that instead of Lohengrin, which
+we had expected to hear, they had changed the opera to Faust, which I
+had heard the week before. Faust is, however, a fascinating opera, and
+it is beautifully given here, albeit the Germans stick to it that it is
+Gounod's Faust and not Goethe's.
+
+Since I have come here I have a perfect passion for going to the opera,
+for everything is done in such superb fashion, and they have the
+orchestra of the Symphony Kapelle, which is so splendid that it could
+not be better. It is a pity the singers are not equally good, but I
+don't believe Germany is the land of great voices. However, the men sing
+finely, and the prima donnas have much talent, and _act_ beautifully.
+The prima donna on this occasion was Mallinger, the rival of Lucca. She
+is especially good as Margaretta. Niemann and Wachtel are the great men
+singers. Wachtel was formerly a coachman, but he has a lovely voice. His
+acting is not remarkable, but Niemann is superb, and he sings and acts
+delightfully. He is very tall and fair, with light whiskers, and golden
+hair crowning a noble head, in truth a regular Viking. When he comes out
+in his crimson velvet mantle and crimson cap, with a white plume, and
+begins singing these delicious love songs to Margaretta, he is perfectly
+enchanting! He and Mallinger throw themselves into the long love scene
+which fills the third act, and act it magnificently. It was the first
+time I ever saw a love scene well done. The fourth act is most
+impressive. The curtain rises, and shows the interior of a church. The
+candles are burning on the altar, and the priests and acolytes are
+standing in their proper order before it. The organ strikes up a fugue
+and all the peasants come in and kneel down. Then poor Margaretta comes
+in for refuge, but when she kneels to pray a voice is heard which tells
+her that for her there is no refuge or hope in heaven or earth.
+
+This scene Mallinger does so well that it is nature itself. When the
+voice is heard she gives a shriek, totters for a moment, and then falls
+upon the floor senseless, and O, _so_ naturally that one is entirely
+carried away by it. The organ takes up the fugue, and the curtain drops.
+The contrast between the two acts makes it all the more effective, for
+in the third it is all love and flowers and languishing music, and in
+the fourth one is suddenly recalled to the sanctity and severity of the
+church; also, after the orchestra this subdued fugue on the organ makes
+a very peculiar impression. In the fifth act Margaretta is in prison,
+and Faust and Mephistopheles come to rescue her. This is a powerful
+scene, for at first she hesitates, and thinks she will go with them, and
+then her mind wanders, and she recalls, as in a vision, the happy scenes
+of earlier days. They keep urging her, and try to drag her along with
+them, but at last she breaks free from them and cries, "To Thee, O, God,
+belongs my soul," and falls upon her straw pallet, and dies. Then the
+scene changes, and you see four angels gradually floating up to heaven,
+supporting her dead body, while the chorus sings:
+
+    "Christ ist erstanden
+    Aus Tod und Banden
+    Frieden und Heil verkeisst
+    Aller Welt er, die ihn preist."[B]
+
+This ends the opera, which is very exciting throughout. I am going to
+read the original as soon as I know a little more German, so that I
+shan't have to read with a dictionary. I am just getting able to read
+Goethe without one, and think he is the most entrancing writer. There
+never could have been a man who understood women so well as he! His
+female characters are perfectly captivating, but he is not very
+flattering to his own sex, and generally makes them, in love, (what they
+are) weak and vacillating.
+
+I met a very agreeable young countryman at a dinner the other day--a Mr.
+P.--and a great contrast to any of Goethe's ill-regulated heroes. He was
+the typical American, I thought. Wide awake, bright, with a sharp eye
+to business, very republican, with a hearty contempt for titles and a
+great respect for women, practical and clear-headed. When the wine was
+passed round he refused it, and said he had never drunk a glass of wine
+or touched tobacco in his life. I was so amused, for he looked so young.
+I said to myself, "probably you are just out of college, and are
+travelling before you settle down to a profession." After a while he
+said something about his wife. I was a little surprised, but still I
+thought "perhaps you have only been married a few months." A little
+further on he mentioned his children. I was still more surprised, but
+thought he couldn't have more than two; but when Mrs. B. asked him how
+many he had, and he said "three living and two dead," adding very
+gravely, "I have been twice left childless," I could scarcely help
+bursting out laughing, for I had thought him about twenty-one, and these
+revelations of a wife and numerous family seemed too preposterous!--But
+it was very nice to see such a model countryman, too. It is such men
+that make the American greatness.
+
+After dinner I went with my hostess to hear Mendelssohn's Oratorio of
+St. Paul. It is a great work, a little tedious as a whole, but with
+wonderfully beautiful numbers interspersed through it. There are several
+lovely chorales in it. I was disappointed in the performance, though,
+for in the first place there is no organ in the Sing-Akademie, and I
+consider the effect of the organ and the drums indispensable to an
+oratorio; and in the second, the solos all seemed to me indifferently
+sung. The choruses were faultless, however. They understand how to
+drill a chorus here! Next Friday I am going to Haydn's "Jahreszeiten,"
+which I never happened to hear in Boston.
+
+Germany is a great place for birds and flowers. All winter long we have
+quantities of saucy-looking little sparrows here, and they have the most
+thievish expression when they fly down for a crumb. I sometimes put
+crumbs on my window-sill, and in a short time they are sure to see them.
+Then they stand on the edge of a roof opposite, and look from side to
+side for a long time, the way birds do. At last they make up their
+minds, swoop down on the sill, stretch their heads, give a bold look to
+see if I am about, and then snatch a crumb and fly off with it. They
+never can get over their own temerity, and always give a chirp as they
+fly away with the crumb; whether it is a note of triumph over their
+success, or an expression of nervousness, I cannot decide. One cold day
+I passed a tree, on every twig of which was a bird. They were holding a
+political meeting, I am sure, for they were all jabbering away to each
+other in the most excited manner, and each one had his breast bulged
+out, and his feathers ruffled. They were "awfully cunning!"
+
+On Tuesday I went out to Borsig's greenhouse. He is an immensely rich
+man here, who makes a specialty of flowers. He lives some way out of
+Berlin, and has the largest conservatories here. The inside of the
+portico which leads into them is all covered with ivy, which creeps up
+on the inside of the walls, and covers them completely. When we came
+within, the flowers were arranged in perfect _banks_ all along the
+length of the greenhouse, so that you saw one continuous line of
+brilliant colours, and oh--the perfume! The hyacinths predominated in
+all shades, though there were many other flowers, and many of them new
+to me. Camelias were trained, vine fashion, all over the sides of the
+greenhouse, and hundreds of white and pink blossoms were depending from
+them. All the centre of the greenhouse was a bed of rich earth covered
+with a little delicate plant, and at intervals planted with azalea
+bushes so covered with blossoms that one could scarcely see the leaves.
+At one end was a very large cage filled with brilliant birds, and at the
+other was a lovely fountain of white marble--Venus and Cupid supported
+on three shells. But I was most struck by the tree ferns, which I had
+never before seen. They were perfectly magnificent, and were arranged on
+the highest side of the greenhouse with many other rare plants most
+artistically mingled in. After we had finished looking at the flowers we
+went into a second house, where were palm trees, ferns, cacti and all
+sorts of strange things growing, but all placed with the same taste. It
+was a beautiful sight, and I never had any idea of the garden of Eden
+before. I must try and bring home a pot of the "Violet of the Alps." It
+is the most delicate little flower, and looks as if it grew on a high,
+cold mountain.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _April 1, 1870_.
+
+To-day is April Fool's day, and the first real month of spring is begun.
+I have not fooled anybody yet, but as soon as dinner is ready, I shall
+rush to the window and cry, "There goes the king!" Of course they will
+all run to see him, and then I shall get it off on the whole family at
+once. I shall wait until the "kleiner Hans," Frau W.'s son, comes home.
+I call him the "Kleinen" in derision, for in reality he is immense. I
+have been very much struck with the height of the people here. As a rule
+they are much taller than Americans, and sometimes one meets perfect
+giants in the streets. The Prussian men are often semi-insolent in their
+street manners to women, and sometimes nearly knock you off the
+sidewalk, from simply not choosing to see you. I suppose this arrogance
+is one of the benefits of their military training! They _will_ have the
+middle of the walk where the stone flag is laid, no matter what _you_
+have to step off into!
+
+I went to hear Haydn's Jahreszeiten a few evenings since, and it is the
+most charming work--such a happy combination of grave and gay! He wrote
+it when he was seventy years old, and it is so popular that one has
+great difficulty in getting a ticket for it. The _salon_ was entirely
+filled, so that I had to take a seat in the _loge_, where the places are
+pretty poor, though I went early, too. The work is sung like an
+oratorio, in arias, recitatives and choruses, and is interspersed with
+charming little songs. It represents the four seasons of the year, and
+each part is prefaced by a little overture appropriate to the passing
+of each season into the next. The recitatives are sung by Hanna and
+Lucas, who are lovers, and by Simon, who is a friend of both,
+apparently. The autumn is the prettiest of the four parts, for it
+represents first the joy of the country people over the harvests and
+over the fruits. Then comes a splendid chorus in praise of Industry.
+After that follows a little love dialogue between Hanna and Lucas, then
+a description of a hunt, then a dance; lastly the wine is brought, and
+the whole ends with a magnificent chorus in praise of wine. The dance is
+too pretty for anything, for the whole chorus sings a waltz, and it is
+the gayest, most captivating composition imaginable. The choruses here
+are so splendidly drilled that they give the expression in a very vivid
+manner, and produce beautiful effects. All the parts are perfectly
+accurate and well balanced. But the solo singers are, as I have remarked
+in former letters, for the most part, ordinary.
+
+I took my last lesson of Ehlert yesterday. I am very sorry that he and
+Tausig have quarrelled, for he is a splendid teacher. He has taught me a
+great deal, and precisely the things that I wanted to know and could not
+find out for myself. For instance, those twists and turns of the hands
+that artists have, their way of striking the chords, and many other
+little technicalities which one must have a master to learn. He always
+seemed to take great pleasure in teaching me, and I am most grateful to
+him for his encouragement. I think Tausig behaves very strangely to be
+off for such a long time. He does not return until the first of May, and
+all this month we are to be taught by one of his best scholars until he
+comes back and engages another teacher. He has just given concerts at
+St. Petersburg, and I am told that at a single one he made six thousand
+rubles. They are in an immense enthusiasm there over him.
+
+Last night I went with Mr. B. to hear Bach's Passion Music. Anything to
+equal that last chorus I never heard from voices. I felt as if it ought
+to go on forever, and could not bear to have it end. That chorale, "O
+Sacred Head now wounded," is taken from it, and it comes in twice; the
+second time with different harmonies and without accompaniment. It is
+the most exquisite thing; you feel as if you would like to die when you
+hear it. But the last chorus carries you straight up to heaven. It
+begins:
+
+    "We sit down in tears
+    And call to thee in the grave,
+    Rest soft--rest soft."
+
+It represents the rest of our Saviour after the stone had been rolled
+before the tomb, and it is _divine_. Everybody in the chorus was dressed
+in black, and almost every one in the audience, so you can imagine what
+a sombre scene it was. This is the custom here, and on Good Friday, when
+the celebrated "Tod Jesu" by Graun, is performed, they go in black
+without exception.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _April 24, 1870_.
+
+I thought of you all on Easter Sunday, and wondered what sort of music
+you were having. I did not go to the English church, as is my wont, but
+to the Dom, which is the great church here, and is where all the court
+goes. It is an extremely ugly church, and much like one of our old
+Congregational meeting-houses; but they have a superb choir of two
+hundred men and boys which is celebrated all over Europe. Haupt (Mr. J.
+K. Paine's former master) is the organist, and of course they have a
+very large organ. I knew, as this was Easter, that the music would be
+magnificent, so I made A. W. go there with me, much against her will,
+for she declared we should get no seat. The Germans don't trouble
+themselves to go to church very often, but on a feast day they turn out
+in crowds.
+
+We got to the church only twenty minutes before service began, and I
+confess I was rather daunted as I saw the swarms of people not only
+going in but coming out, hopeless of getting into the church. However, I
+determined to push on and see what the chances were, and with great
+difficulty we got up stairs. There is a lobby that runs all around the
+church, just as in the Boston Music Hall. All the doors between the
+gallery and the lobby were open, and each was crammed full of people. I
+thought the best thing we could do would be to stand there until we got
+tired, and listen to the music, and then go. Finally, the sexton came
+along, and A. asked him if he could not give us two seats; he shrugged
+his shoulders and said, "Yes, if you choose to pass through the crowd."
+We boldly said we would, although it looked almost hopeless, and then
+made our way through it, followed by muttered execrations. At last the
+sexton unlocked a door, and gave us two excellent seats, and there was
+plenty of room for a dozen more people; but I don't doubt he frightened
+them away just as he would have done us if he could. He locked us in,
+and there we sat quite in comfort.
+
+At ten the choir began to sing a psalm. They sit directly over the
+chancel, and a gilded frame work conceals them completely from the
+congregation. They have a leader who conducts them, and they sing in
+most perfect time and tune, entirely without accompaniment. The voices
+are tender and soft rather than loud, and they weave in and out most
+beautifully. There are a great many different parts, and the voices keep
+striking in from various points, which produces a delicious effect, and
+makes them sound like an angel choir far up in the sky. After they had
+finished the psalm the organ burst out with a tremendous great chord,
+enough to make you jump, and then played a chorale, and there were also
+trombones which took the melody. Then all the congregation sang the
+chorale, and the choir kept silence. You cannot imagine how easy it is
+to sing when the trombones lead, and the effect is overwhelming with the
+organ, especially in these grand old chorales. I could scarcely bear it,
+it was so very exciting.
+
+There was a great deal of music, as it was Easter Sunday, and it was
+done alternately by the choir and the congregation; but generally the
+Dom choir only sings one psalm before the service begins, and therefore
+I seldom take the trouble to go there. The rest of the music is entirely
+congregational, and they only have trombones on great occasions. We sat
+close by the chancel, and the great wax candles flared on the altar
+below us, and the Lutheran clergyman read the German so that it sounded
+a good deal like Latin. I was quite surprised to see how much like Latin
+German _could_ sound, for it has these long, rolling words, and it is
+just as pompous. Altogether it made a strange but splendid impression. I
+thought if they had only had their choir in the chancel, and in white
+surplices, it would have been much more beautiful, but perhaps the music
+would not have sounded so fine as when the singers were overhead. The
+Berlin churches all look as if religion was dying out here, so old and
+bare and ill-cared for, and so few in number. They are only redeemed by
+the great castles of organs which they generally have; and it is a
+difficult thing to get the post of organist here. One must be an
+experienced and well-known musician to do it. They sing no chants in the
+service, but only chorales.
+
+To-night is the last Royal Symphony Concert of this season, and of
+course I shall go. This wonderful orchestra carries me completely away.
+It is too marvellous how they play! such expression, such _élan!_ I
+heard them give Beethoven's Leonora Overture last week in such a fashion
+as fairly electrified me. This overture sums up the opera of Fidelio,
+and in one part of it, just as the hero is going to be executed, you
+hear the post-horn sound which announces his delivery. This they play so
+softly that you catch it exactly as if it came from a long distance, and
+you cannot believe it comes from the orchestra. It makes you think of
+"the horns of elf-land faintly blowing."
+
+Tausig is expected back this week, and he has indeed been gone long
+enough. He is going to give a lesson every Monday to the best scholars
+who are not in his class, and as I stand at the head of these I hope to
+have a lesson from him every week. This would suit me better than two,
+as he is so dreadfully exacting, and it will give me time to learn a
+piece well. Then I should have my regular lesson beside from Mr.
+Beringer, or whoever he appoints to take Ehlert's place. Beringer, who
+is a young man about twenty-five years old, has turned out a capital
+teacher, and I am learning much with him. He plays beautifully himself,
+and is a great favorite of Tausig's. He has been with him so long that
+he teaches his method excellently, and gives me pieces that he has
+studied with him. I believe he is to come out at the Gewandhaus, in
+Leipsic, in October, and after that he will settle in London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     The Thier-Garten. A Military Review. Charlottenburg. Tausig. Berlin
+     in Summer. Potsdam and Babelsberg.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _June 5, 1870_.
+
+We've had the vilest possible weather this spring, but Berlin looks
+perfectly lovely now. There are a great many gardens attached to the
+houses here. Everything is in bloom, and is laden with the scent of
+lilacs and apple blossoms. The streets are planted with lindens and
+horse chestnut trees, and on the fashionable street bordering on the
+Thier-Garten, all the houses have little lawns in front, carpeted with
+the most dazzling green grass, and rising out of it are solid banks of
+flowers. The shrubs are planted according to their height, close
+together, and one behind the other, and as they are all in blossom you
+see these great masses of colour. It is like a gigantic bouquet growing
+up before you.
+
+The Thier-Garten is perfectly beautiful. It is so charming to come upon
+this unfenced wood right in the heart of an immense city, with roads and
+paths cut all through it, and each over-arched with vivid green as far
+as the eye can reach. When you see the gay equipages driving swiftly
+through it, and ladies and gentlemen glancing amid the trees on
+horseback, it is very romantic.
+
+Frau W.'s brother, "Uncle S." as I call him, announced the other day
+that he was going to take us to Charlottenburg. I had often been told
+that I must go there and see the "Mausoleum," but as you know I never
+ask for explanations, this did not convey any particular idea to my
+mind, and I started out on this excursion in my usual state of blissful
+ignorance. We took two droschkies for our party, and meandered slowly
+through the Thier-Garten and along the Charlottenburg road till we
+arrived at our point of destination. This was announced from afar by an
+absurd statue poised on one toe on the top of the castle which stands in
+front of the park containing the Mausoleum.
+
+The first thing we did on alighting was to go into a little beer garden
+close by to take coffee. It was a perfect afternoon, and the trees and
+flowers were in all their June glory. We sat down around one of those
+delightful tables which they always have under the trees in Germany. The
+coffee was soon served, hot and strong, and Uncle S. took out a cigar to
+complete his enjoyment. Then we began to stroll. We went through a gate
+into the grounds surrounding the castle, and after passing through the
+orangery emerged into a garden, which soon spread into a beautiful park
+filled with magnificent trees, and with beds of flowers cut in the
+smooth turf for some distance along the borders of the avenues. We
+turned to the right (instead of to the left, which would have brought us
+directly to the Mausoleum) in order to see the flowers first, then the
+river, and then come round by the pond where the carp are kept.
+
+The Germans certainly understand laying out parks to perfection. They
+are not _too_ rigidly kept, and there is an air of nature about
+everything. This Charlottenburg park is a particularly fascinating one.
+A dense avenue borders the River Spree, which is broad at this point,
+and flows gloomily and silently along. The branches of the trees
+overhang the stream, and also lock together across the walk, forming a
+leafy avenue before and behind you. We met very few people, scarcely any
+one, in fact, and the songs of the birds were the only sounds that broke
+the all-pervading calm. The path finally left the river, and we came out
+on an open spot, where was a pretty view of the castle through a little
+cut in the trees. We sat down on a bench and looked about us for awhile,
+and then went up on the bridge which crosses the pond where the carp are
+kept. The Germans always feed these carp religiously, and that is a
+regular part of the excursion. The fish are very old, many of them, and
+we saw some hoary old fellows rise lazily to the surface and condescend
+to swallow the morsels of cake that we threw them. They were evidently
+accustomed to good living, and, like all swells, considered it only
+their due!
+
+At last we came gradually round towards the Mausoleum. An avenue of
+hemlocks led to it--"Trauer-Bäume (mourning-trees)," as the Germans call
+them, and it was an exquisite touch of sentiment to make _this_ avenue
+of these dark funereal evergreens. At first you see nothing, for the
+avenue is long, and you turn into it gay and smiling with the influence
+of the birds, the trees, and the flowers fresh upon you. But the
+drooping boughs of the sombre hemlocks soon begin to take effect, and
+the feeling that comes over one when about half way down it is certainly
+peculiar. It seems as if one were passing between a row of tall and
+silent _sentinels_ watching over the abode of death!
+
+Involuntarily you begin repeating from Edgar Poe's haunting poem:
+
+    "Then I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
+    And conquered her scruples and gloom,
+    And banished her scruples and gloom,
+    And we passed to the end of the vista
+    Till we came to the door of a tomb;
+    And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister,
+    On the door of this legended tomb?'
+    And she said, 'Ulalume, Ulalume,
+    'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume."
+
+And so, too, does _your_ eye become fixed upon a door at the end of
+_this_ vista, which comes nearer and nearer until finally the Mausoleum
+takes form round it in the shape of a little Greek temple of polished
+brown marble. A small flower garden lies in front of it, and it would
+look inviting enough if one did not know what it was. Two officials
+stand ready to receive you and conduct you up the steps.
+
+Within these walls a royal pair lie buried--King Friedrich Wilhelm III.
+and his beautiful wife, Luisa, who so calmly withstood the bullying of
+Napoleon I. and for whom the Prussians cherish such a chivalrous
+affection. They are entombed under the front portion of the temple, and
+two slabs in the pavement mark their resting places. These are lit from
+above by a window in the roof filled with blue glass, which throws a
+subdued and solemn light into the marble chamber. You walk past them to
+the other end of the temple, which is cruciform in shape, go up one step
+between pillars, and there, in the little white transept, lie upon two
+snowy marble couches the sculptured forms of the dead king and queen
+side by side. Though this apartment is lit by side windows of plain
+glass high up on the walls, so that it is full of the white daylight,
+yet the blueish light from the outer room is reflected into it just
+enough to heighten the delicacy of the marble and to bestow on
+everything an unearthly aspect.
+
+Queen Luisa was celebrated for her beauty, and the sculptor Rauch, who
+knew and adored her, has breathed it all into the stone. There she lay,
+as if asleep, her head easily pressing the pillow, her feet crossed and
+the outlines of her exquisite form veiled but not concealed by the thin
+tissue-like drapery. It covered even the little feet, but they seemed to
+define themselves all the more daintily through the muslin. There is no
+look of death about her face. She seems more like a bonny "Queen o' the
+May," reclining with closed eyes upon her flowery bed. The statue has
+been criticised by some on account of this entire absence of the
+"_beauté de la mort_." There is no transfigured or glorified look to it.
+It is simply that of a beautiful woman in deep repose. But it seems to
+me that this is a matter of taste, and that the artist had a perfect
+right to represent her as he most felt she was. The king's statue is
+clothed in full uniform, and he looks very striking, too, lying there
+in all the dignity of manhood and of kingship, with the drapery of his
+military cloak falling about him. His features are delicate and regular,
+and he is a fit counterpart to his lovely consort. Against the back wall
+an altar is elevated on some steps, and there is an endless fascination
+in leaning against it and gazing down on those two august forms
+stretched out so still before you. On either side of the statues are
+magnificent tall candelabra of white marble of very rich and beautiful
+design, and appropriate inscriptions from the German Bible run round the
+carved and diapered marble walls. Altogether, this garden-park, with its
+river, its Mausoleum, its avenue of hemlocks, and its glorious statues
+of the king and queen, is one of the most exquisite and ideal
+conceptions imaginable. As we returned it was toward sunset. The evening
+wind was sighing through the tall trees and the waving grasses. An
+indefinable influence hovered in the air. The supernatural seemed to
+envelop us, and instinctively we hastened a little as we retraced our
+steps.
+
+When we emerged from the hemlock avenue Uncle S., I thought, seemed
+rather relieved, for the contemplation of a future life is not
+particularly sympathetic to him! After he had asked me if I did not
+think the Mausoleum "_sehr schön_ (very beautiful)," and had ascertained
+that I _did_ think so, he restored his equilibrium by taking out another
+cigar, which he lighted, and we leisurely made our way through the
+garden to our droschkies and drove home. It was quite dark as we were
+coming through the Thier-Garten, and it seemed like a forest. The stars
+were shining through the branches overhead, and their soothing light
+gave the last poetic touch to a lovely day.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _June 26, 1870_.
+
+Last week the Emperor of Austria was here, and they had a parade in his
+honour. The B.'s took me in their carriage to see it. We drove to a
+large plain outside the city, and there we saw a mock battle, and all
+the manœuvers of an army--how they advance and retreat, and how they
+form and deploy. There was a continual fire of musketry and artillery,
+and it was very exciting. The enemy was only imaginary, but the
+attacking party acted just as if there were one, and at last it ended
+with the taking by storm, which was done by the attacking party rushing
+on with one continued cheer, or rather yell, from one end of the lines
+to the other. Then they all broke up, the bands played the Russian Hymn,
+the King and the Emperor mounted horses and led off a great body of
+cavalry, and away we all clattered home--carriages and horses all
+together. It was a great sight, and I enjoyed it very much.
+
+I am going to play before Tausig next Monday, and have been studying
+very hard. He praised me very much the last time, and said he would soon
+take me into his regular class; but he is such a whimsical creature that
+one can't rely on him much. Two of the girls have almost finished their
+studies with him, and soon are going to give concerts. I am playing
+Scarlatti, which he is _awfully_ particular with, and expect to have my
+head taken off. Two of his scholars are playing the same pieces that I
+am, and he told one of them that she played "like a nut-cracker." He is
+very funny sometimes. The other day one of the young men played the
+Pastoral Sonata to him. Tausig gave a sigh, and said, "This _should_ be
+a garden of roses, but, as you play it, I see only potato plants."
+Scarlatti is charming music. He writes _en suite_ like Bach, and is
+still more quaint and full of humour.
+
+I find Berlin very pleasant, even in summer. Most of the better houses
+are made with balconies or bow windows, and around each one they will
+have a little frame full of earth in which is planted mignonette,
+nasturtiums, geraniums, etc., which trail over the edge, and as you look
+up from the street it seems as if the houses were festooned with
+flowers. On many of them woodbine is trained so that every window is set
+in a deep green frame. All the nice streets have pretty little front
+yards in which roses are planted, and I never saw anything like them.
+The branches are cut to one thick, straight stem, which is tied to a
+stick. They grow very tall, and each one is crowned with a top-knot of
+superb roses. Every yard looks like a little orchard of roses, and they
+are of every imaginable shade of colour. Every American who comes here
+must be struck with the want of beauty in the cities he has left at
+home; and it is really shameful, that when our people are so much better
+off, and when such immense numbers of them see this European culture
+every year, still they do not introduce the same things into our
+country. Take Fifth Avenue or Beacon Street, for example, and one won't
+see anything the whole length of them but a little green grass and an
+occasional woodbine, whereas here they would be adorned with flowers and
+all sorts of contrivances to make them beautiful.
+
+On Thursday a little party of three, including myself, was made up to
+take me out to Potsdam. The Museum, Charlottenburg and Potsdam, are, as
+Mr. T. B. says, "the three sights of Berlin." I have written you of the
+first two, and you shall now have the third. Potsdam is sixteen miles
+from here, and it took about as long to go there by train as it does
+from Boston to Lynn. It is the royal summer residence. On arriving we
+bought a large quantity of cherries and then seated ourselves in a
+carriage to drive through the city to Charlottenhof. Here we got out and
+walked into a superb park, filled with splendid old trees. The first
+thing we saw was a beautiful little building in the Pompeian style. This
+was where Humboldt used to stay with the last king and queen in summer.
+We went into it and found it the sweetest little place you can imagine.
+When we opened the door, instead of a hall was a little court with a
+fountain in it and two low, broad staircases (of marble, I think)
+sweeping up to the main story. The walls were delicately tinted and
+frescoed all round the borders with Pompeian devices. The windows were
+of some sort of thin transparent stained glass, through which the light
+could penetrate easily, and were also in the Pompeian fashion, with
+chariots, and horses, and goddesses, etc. The rooms all opened into
+each other, but we were obliged to go through them so hastily that I
+could not look at them much in detail. The walls were covered with
+lovely pictures, and there were tables inlaid with precious marbles and
+all sorts of beautiful things. We saw the table and chair where the king
+always sat, just as he had left it, with his papers and drawings; and
+the queen's boudoir, with her writing materials and her sewing
+arrangements. From her window one looked out on a fountain at the right,
+and on the left was a long arcade covered with vines which led to a
+garden of roses.
+
+We opened a door and passed through this arcade, and, after looking at
+the flowers, went on through the park until we came to another house,
+which was Pompeian, also, or Greek, I couldn't exactly tell which. It
+was built only to bathe in. The floors were all of stone, and it was as
+cool and fresh as could be. The bath itself was a large semi-circular
+place into which one went down by steps. It was large enough to swim in.
+Those old peoples understood pretty well how to make themselves
+comfortable, didn't they? There was an ancient bath-tub there, set upon
+a pedestal, made of some precious stone, which Humboldt had appraised at
+half a million of thalers. Outside was a lovely little garden, of
+course, and one of the prettiest things I saw was a quantity of those
+flowers which only grow in cool, moist places, sheltered under an
+awning. The awning was circular, and stretched down to the ground on
+three sides, so that one could only see the flowers by standing just in
+front. There were any number of lady-slippers of every shade, each
+mottled exquisitely with a different colour, and behind them rose other
+flowers in regular gradation, and all of brilliant tints. It seemed as
+if they were all nestling under a great shaker bonnet, and they looked
+as coy and bewitching as possible. I thought it was a charming idea.
+
+After we left this place we went on until we came to Sans Souci, which
+was built simply for the benefit of the orange trees--to give them a
+shelter in winter. At least, this was the pretext. It has a most
+dazzling effect in the sunshine as you look at it from below. Terrace
+rises above terrace, and at the top is this airy white building rising
+lightly into the sky, with galleries and towers, groups of statuary,
+colonnades, fountains, flowers, and every device one can imagine to make
+it look as much like a fairy palace as possible. The great burly orange
+trees stand in rows in the gardens in large green pots. Many of them
+were in blossom, and cast their heavy perfume on the air. You couldn't
+turn your eyes any where that _something_ was not arranged to arrest and
+surprise them. Here I saw another way of training roses. Running along
+on the green turf was a certain low growing variety, the branches of
+which they pin to the earth with a kind of wooden hair-pin, so that it
+does not show. They thus lie perfectly flat, and the grass is
+_literally_ "carpeted" with them. It was lovely. After we had
+sufficiently admired the exterior of the palace, we ascended the flights
+of steps which lead up the terraces, and went into it. Outside were the
+long galleries where the orange trees stand, and then we passed into
+the large and noble rooms. First came the one which is devoted to
+Raphael's pictures. Copies of them all hang upon the walls. After we had
+gazed at them a long time, we looked at the other apartments, all of
+which were furnished in some extraordinary way, but I glanced at them
+too hastily to retain any recollection of them. I only remember that one
+was all of malachite and gold.
+
+The next thing we did was to go over the palace originally named "Sans
+Souci," where Frederick the Great lived. We saw the benches--ledges
+rather--on which his poor pages had to sit in the corridor, and which
+were purposely made so narrow in order to prevent their falling asleep
+while on duty. The armchair in which he died is there, and the bust of
+Charles XII still stands on the floor at the foot of the statue of
+Venus, where Frederick placed it in derision, because Charles was a
+woman-hater. I think it was a very small piece of malice on Frederick's
+part, and in fact he had such a bad heart that none of his relics
+interested me in the least.
+
+After we had seen everything we went to a little restaurant at the foot
+of Sans Souci, where we drank beer and coffee and ate cake seated round
+a little table under the trees. This fashion that the Germans have of
+eating out of doors in summer is perfectly delightful, I think. I laid
+in a fresh stock of cherries, though I had already eaten an immense
+quantity, but they looked so nice, piled in little pyramids upon a vine
+leaf, like the cannon balls at the Cambridge arsenal, that there was no
+resisting them. I've thought of you ever since the cherry season began.
+They are so extremely cheap here, that two groschens (about six cents)
+will buy as many as two persons can eat at one time. We drove from Sans
+Souci to Fingstenberg, which is only a place to see a view of the
+country. The landscape was perfectly flat, but it had the charm of quiet
+cultivation. It was green with beautiful trees, and the river wound
+along dotted with white sails, and there were wind-mills turning in
+every direction. After we left Fingstenberg we drove down to an inn
+where we ordered dinner, and this also was served out of doors. It was
+about six o'clock in the evening, and we were all very hungry, so we
+enjoyed this part of the programme very much.
+
+When we had finished our cutlet and green peas we got into the carriage
+again, and drove to Babelsberg. This is a little retreat which belongs
+to the queen, and where the royal family sometimes passes a few weeks in
+summer. We walked through a noble park where the ground swelled upward
+on our left and sloped downward on our right. After following the
+windings of the road for a long distance, we at last arrived at the
+little castle, perched upon a hill-side and embowered in trees. A smart
+looking maid showed us through it, and I was more impressed here than by
+all I had previously seen. As Balzac says, "People who talk about a
+house 'being like a palace' should see one first,"--although, as Herr J.
+observed, "Babelsberg is not a palace, but is more like the home of an
+English nobleman." It is just a quiet little retreat, but the beauty
+with which everything is arranged is quite indescribable. Every window
+is planned so that you cannot look out without having something
+exquisite before you. Here it will be a little mosaic of rare flowers;
+there a fountain, etc. And then the bronzes, the pictures, the rare old
+pieces of glass and china, the thousand curious and beautiful objects of
+art that one must see over and over again to be able really to take in.
+In these castles, too, there are no end of little nooks and crannies
+where two or three persons, only, can sit and talk. Dainty little
+recesses made for enjoyment.
+
+I walked into the grand salon and imagined an elegant assemblage of
+people in it, with all the means of entertainment at hand. It was a
+circular room, and large enough to dance the German in very comfortably.
+We went up stairs and through the different apartments. I went into the
+Princess Royal's room, and "surveyed my queenly form" in the superb
+mirror, and arranged my veil by her toilette glass--which I envied her,
+I assure you, for it shone like silver. We saw the cane of Frederick the
+Great, with a lion couchant on it--the one which he shook on some
+occasion and frightened somebody--(now you know, don't you?) Last of all
+we went up into the tower, and after climbing the dizzy staircase, we
+stood on the balconies for a long time, and looked over the splendid
+park about the country. Altogether, I was enchanted with Babelsberg, and
+nothing will suit me now but to have it for the retreat of my old age. I
+think I shall apply to be a servant there, for it must be a delightful
+situation. The royal family is only a short time there, and the servants
+have this exquisite habitation, which is always kept in perfect order,
+all the rest of the year, and have nothing to do but show visitors over
+it and take in half thalers!
+
+After we left Babelsberg we took a carriage and drove to the station,
+where we got into the cars about half-past nine, and went back to
+Berlin. Herr J. had made himself extremely agreeable, and had exerted
+himself the whole day on our behalf. We had a most perfect time of its
+kind, and I enjoyed every minute of it, but came back in the worst of
+spirits, as I generally do. It seems so hard that one can never get
+together _all_ the elements of perfect happiness! Here in Babelsberg
+everything was so lovely that one could scarcely believe that there had
+ever been a "Fall." It seemed as if people _must_ be happy there, and
+yet I'm told that the queen is very unhappy. I suppose because she has
+such a faithless old husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     The War. German Meals. Women and Men. Tausig's Teaching. Tausig
+     Abandons his Conservatory. Dresden. Kullak.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _July 23, 1870_.
+
+Just now the grand topic of course is this dreadful war that has just
+been declared between Prussia and France, and everybody is in the
+wildest state of excitement over it. It broke out so very suddenly that
+it is only just one week since it has been decided upon, and ever since,
+the drafting has been going on, and the streets are filled with
+regiments and with droves of horses, cannon, and all the implements of
+war. The trains are going out all the time packed with soldiers, and the
+railroad stations are the constant scene of weeping women of all
+classes, come to see the last of their dear ones. There is such a storm
+of indignation against Napoleon that one hears nothing but curses
+against him. I am entirely on the German side, and am anxious to see the
+result, for between two such great nations, and with so much at stake,
+it will be a tremendous struggle.
+
+We are promised a holiday soon, when I shall have a let-up from
+practicing, and only practice three hours a day, instead of five or six.
+Don't think I am making extraordinary progress because I practice so
+much. I find that the strengthening and equalizing of the fingers is a
+terribly slow process, and that it takes much more time to make a step
+forward than I expected. You may know how a thing _ought_ to be played,
+but it is another matter to get your hands into such a training that
+they obey your will. Sometimes I am very much encouraged, and feel as if
+I should be an artist "immediately, if not sooner," and at others I fall
+into the blackest despair. I don't know but that S. J. was in the right
+of it, not to attempt anything, for it is an awful pull when you _do_
+once begin to study!
+
+I wish S. could come here and spend a winter. I am sure it would be
+capital for her health. The Germans have a great idea that you must
+"_stärken_ (strengthen)" yourself. So they eat every few hours. When you
+first arrive you feel stuffed to bursting all the time, for you
+naturally eat heartily at every meal, because, as we only eat three
+times a day in America, we are accustomed to take a good deal at once.
+Here they have five meals a day, and one has to learn how to take a
+little at a time. But it is a pretty good idea, for you are continually
+repairing yourself, and you never have such a strain on your system as
+to get hungry! The German women are plump roly-polies, as a general
+rule, and it is probably in consequence of this continual
+"strengthening." One has full opportunity to observe their condition,
+for they generally have their dress "_aus-geschnitten_ (square neck),"
+as they call it, in order to save collars, and you will see them
+strolling along the streets with their dresses out open in front. They
+are not handsome--irregular features and muddy complexions being the
+rule. The way they neglect their teeth is the worst. They are always
+complimenting Americans on what they call our "fine Grecian noses," and,
+in fact, since they have said so much about it, I have noticed that
+nearly all Americans _have_ straight and reasonably proportioned
+noses.--One sees a great many handsome _men_ on the street,
+however--many more than we do at home. Perhaps it is because the
+Prussian uniform sets them off so, and then their blonde beards and
+moustaches give them a _distingué_ air.
+
+From what you tell me of the shock of our respected friend---- over B.'s
+travelling from the West under Mr. S.'s escort, I think the
+"conventionalities" are taking too strong a hold in America, and it will
+not be many years before they are as strict there as they are here,
+where young people of different sexes can never see anything of each
+other. I regard it as a shocking system, as the Germans manage it. Young
+ladies and gentlemen only see each other in parties, and a young man can
+never call on a girl, but must always see her in the presence of the
+whole family. I only wonder how marriages are managed at all, for the
+sexes seem to live quite isolated from each other. The consequence is,
+the girls get a lot of rubbish in their heads, and as for the men, I
+know not what they think, for I have not seen any to speak of since I
+have been here. You can imagine that with my co-education training and
+ideas, I have given Fräulein W.'s moral system a succession of shocks.
+She has been fenced up, so to speak, her whole life, and, consequently,
+was dumbfounded at the bold stand I take. I cannot resist giving her a
+sensation once in a while, so I come out with some strong expression. Do
+you know, since I've seen so much of the world I've come to the
+conclusion that the New England principle of teaching daughters to be
+independent and to look out for themselves from the first, is an
+excellent one. I've seen the evil of this German system of never
+allowing children to think for themselves. It _does_ make them so
+mawkish. A girl here nearly thirty years old will not know where to buy
+the simplest thing, or do without her mother any more than a baby. The
+best plan is the old-fashioned American one, viz.: Give your children a
+"stern sense of duty," and then throw them on their own resources.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _August 6, 1870_.
+
+Until yesterday I have had no holiday, for I got into Tausig's class
+finally, so I had to practice very hard. He was as amiable to me as he
+ever can be to anybody, but he is the most trying and exasperating
+master you can possibly imagine. It is his principle to rough you and
+snub you as much as he can, even when there is no occasion for it, and
+you can think yourself fortunate if he does not hold you up to the
+ridicule of the whole class. I was put into the class with Fräulein
+Timanoff, who is so far advanced that Tausig told her he would not give
+her lessons much longer, for that she knew enough to graduate. You can
+imagine what an ordeal my first lesson was to me. I brought him a long
+and difficult Scherzo, by Chopin, that I had practiced carefully for a
+month, and knew well. Fancy how easy it was for me to play, when he
+stood over me and kept calling out all through it in German, "Terrible!
+Shocking! Dreadful! O Gott! O Gott!" I was really playing it well, too,
+and I kept on in spite of him, but my nerves were all rasped and excited
+to the highest point, and when I got through and he gave me my music,
+and said, "Not at all bad" (very complimentary for him), I rushed out of
+the room and burst out crying. He followed me immediately, and coolly
+said, "What are you crying for, child? Your playing was not at all bad."
+I told him that it was "impossible for me to help it when he talked in
+such a way," but he did not seem to be aware that he had said anything.
+
+And now to show how we all have our troubles, and that blow falls upon
+blow--I will tell you that at our last lesson Tausig informed us that he
+was _not going to give another lesson to anybody_, and that the
+conservatory would be shut up on the first of October!! This is the most
+_awful_ disappointment to me, for just as I have worked up to the point
+where I am prepared to profit by his lessons, he goes away! I suppose
+that he has left Berlin by this time, or that he will very soon, but he
+wouldn't tell when or where he was going, and only said that he was
+going off, and did not know when he was coming back, or what would
+become of him. Of course he _does_ know, but he does not want to be
+plagued with applications from scholars for private lessons. I heard
+that he was only going to retain two of his scholars, and that one was a
+princess and the other a countess.
+
+He is a perfect rock. I went to his house to see if I could persuade him
+to give me private lessons. He came into the room and accosted me in his
+sharpest manner, with "_Nun, was ist's?_ (Well, what is it?)" I soon
+found that no impression was to be made on him. He only said that when
+he happened to be in Berlin, if I would come and play to him, he would
+give me his judgment. But I never should venture to do this, for as
+likely as not he would be in a bad humour, and send me off--he is such a
+difficult subject to come at. I told him I thought it was very hard
+after I had come all this way, and had been at so much expense only to
+have lessons from him, that I should have to go back without them. He
+said he was very sorry, but that most of his scholars came from long
+distances, and that he could not show any special favor to me. He asked
+me why I insisted upon having lessons from him, and said that Kullak or
+Bendel both teach as well as he does. The fact is, he is a capricious
+genius, entirely spoiled and unregulated, and the conservatory is a mere
+plaything to him. He amused himself with it for a while, and now he is
+tired of it, and doesn't like to be bound down to it, and so he throws
+it up. Money is no consideration to him.
+
+It really seems almost as difficult to get a _great_ teacher in Europe
+as in America. Tausig is the only celebrity who teaches, and now he has
+given up. He rather advised my taking lessons of Bendel, who is a
+resident artist here, and a pupil of Liszt's.
+
+I suffered terribly over Tausig's going off. I heard of it first two
+weeks ago, and couldn't sleep or anything. The only consolation I bare
+is that I should have been "worn to the bone," as H. C. says, if I had
+kept on with him, for all his pupils except little Timanoff, who is at
+the age of plump fifteen, look as thin as rails. However--"the
+bitterness of death is past!" When one is stopped off in one direction,
+there is nothing for it but to turn in another. But it seems as if the
+more one tried to accomplish a thing, the thicker hindrances and
+difficulties spring up about one, like the dragon's teeth. I suppose I
+shall end by going to Kullak. He used to be court pianist here before
+Tausig and has had immense experience as a teacher. Indeed, Professor J.
+K. Paine recommended me to go to him in the first place, you remember.
+If I do, I hope I shall have a better fate than poor young N., whom,
+also, Professor Paine recommended to go to Kullak. He could not
+stand--or else _under_stand the snubbing and brow-beating they gave him
+in Kullak's conservatory, and from being deeply melancholy over it, he
+got desperate, and actually committed suicide!
+
+Germans cannot understand blueness. They are never blue themselves, and
+they expect you always to preserve your equanimity, and torment you to
+death to know "what is the matter?" when there is nothing the matter,
+except that you are in a state of disgust with everything. Moods are
+utterly incomprehensible to them. They feel just the same every day in
+the year.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _August 21, 1870_.
+
+I suppose that C. has described to you in full our Dresden visit, and
+what a lovely time we had. It was really a poetic five days, as
+everything was new to both of us. We were a good deal surprised at many
+things in Dresden. In the first place, the beauty of the city struck us
+very forcibly, and we both remarked how singular it was that of all the
+people we know who have been there no one should have spoken of it. The
+Brühl'sche Terrasse is the most lovely promenade imaginable. It runs
+along the bank of the Elbe River, which is here quite broad and
+handsome, and I always felt myself under a species of enchantment as
+soon as we had ascended the broad flight of steps that lead to it. We
+always took tea in the open air, and listened to a band of music
+playing. The Germans just live in the open air in summer, and it is
+perfectly fascinating. They have these gardens everywhere, filled with
+trees, under which are little tables and chairs and footstools; and
+there you can sit and have dinner or tea served up to you. At night they
+are all lighted up with gas.
+
+It seemed like fairy land, as we sat there in Dresden. The evenings were
+soft and balmy, the very perfection of summer weather. The terrace is
+quite high above the river, and you look up and down it for a long
+distance. The city lies to the left, below you, and the towers rise so
+prettily--precisely as in a picture. This air of the culture of
+centuries lies over everything, and the soft and lazy atmosphere lulls
+the soul to rest. We used to walk until we came to the Belvidere, which
+is a large restaurant with a gallery up-stairs running all round it.
+There was a band of music, and here we sat and took our tea, and spent
+two or three hours, always. The moonlight, the river flowing along and
+spanned with beautiful bridges, the thousands of lamps reflected in it
+and trembling across the water and under the arches, the infinity of
+little steamers and wherries sailing to and fro and brilliantly lighted
+up, the music, and the throngs of people passing slowly by, put one into
+a delicious and bewildered sort of state, and one feels as if this world
+were heaven!
+
+The day after we arrived we went, of course, to the picture gallery, and
+here I was entirely taken by surprise. Nothing one reads or hears gives
+one the least idea of the magnificence of the pictures there. I never
+knew what a picture was before. The softness and richness of the
+colouring, and their exquisite beauty, must be seen to be understood.
+The Sistine Madonna fills one with rapture. It is perfectly glorious,
+and one can't imagine how the mind of man could have conceived it. One
+sees what a flight it was after looking at all the other Madonnas in the
+Gallery, many of which are wonderful. But this one soars above them all.
+Most of the Madonnas look so stiff, or so old, or so matronly, or so
+expressionless, or, at best, as in Corregio's Adoration of the Shepherds
+(a magnificent picture), the rapture of the mother only is expressed in
+the face. In the Sistine Madonna the virgin looks so young and
+innocent--so virgin-like--not like a middle-aged married woman. The
+large, wide-open blue eyes have a dewy look in them, as if they had
+wept many tears, and yet such an innocence that it makes you think of a
+baby whom you have comforted after a violent fit of crying. The majesty
+of the attitude, and the perfect repose of the face, upon which is a
+look of _waiting_, of ineffable expectancy, are very striking. Mr. T. B.
+says it looked to him as though she had been overwhelmed at the
+tremendous dignity that had been put upon her, and was yet lost in the
+awe of it--which I think an exquisite idea. St. Sixtus, who is kneeling
+on the right of the virgin, has an expression of anxious solicitude on
+his features. He is evidently interceding with her for the congregation
+toward whom his right hand is outstretched, for this picture was
+intended to be placed over an altar. The only fault to be found with the
+picture, I think, is in the face of Santa Barbara, who kneels on the
+left. She looks sweetly down upon the sinners below, but with a slight
+self-consciousness. The two cherubs underneath are exquisite. Their
+little round faces wear an exalted look, as if their eyes fully took in
+the august pair to whom they are upturned. The background of the
+picture--all of the faces of angels cloudily painted--gives the
+finishing touch to this astounding creation. But you must see it to
+realize it.
+
+Since my return I have finally decided to take private lessons of
+Kullak. Kullak is a very celebrated teacher, and plays splendidly
+himself, I am told, though he doesn't give concerts any more. He used to
+be court pianist here, and has had so much experience in teaching that
+I hope a good deal from him, though I don't believe he will equal our
+little Tausig, capricious and ill-regulated though he is. Never shall I
+forget the _iron_ way he used to stand over those girls, his hand
+clenched, determined to _make_ them do it! No wonder they played so!
+They didn't dare not to. He told one of the class that "it was _in_ me,
+and he could knock it out of me if he had chosen to keep on with me."
+And I know he could--and that is what distracts me!
+
+But just think what a way to behave--to leave his conservatory so, at a
+day's notice, in holiday time, without even informing his teachers! He
+left everything to be attended to by Beringer. Many of the scholars are
+very poor, and have made a great effort to get here in order to learn
+his method. Off he went like a shot, because he suddenly got disgusted
+with teaching, and he hasn't told a soul where he was going, or how long
+he intended to remain away. He wrote to Bechstein, the great piano-maker
+here, "I am going away--away--away." He wouldn't condescend to say more.
+Mr. Beringer has been to his house to see him on business connected with
+the conservatory, but he was flown, and his housekeeper told Beringer
+that both letters and telegrams had come for Tausig, and she did not
+know where to send them. Did you ever hear of such a capricious
+creature? I was so provoked at him that after the first week I ceased to
+grieve over his departure. One cannot rely on these great geniuses, but
+I hope that, as Kullak makes a business of teaching, and not of playing,
+more is to be gained from him. At any rate, he will not be off on these
+long absences.
+
+I am just studying my first concerto. It is Beethoven's C minor, and it
+is extremely beautiful. Mr. Beringer tells me that two years is too
+short a time to make an artist in; and indeed one does not know how
+extremely difficult it is until one tries it. He plays splendidly
+himself, and is to make his _début_ in the Gewandhaus in Leipsic, this
+October. The best orchestra in Germany is there. Tausig has turned out
+five artists from his conservatory this summer. Time will show if any of
+them become first class.
+
+Aunt H. was right in thinking that this would be one of the most
+dreadful wars that ever was, though she needn't be anxious on my
+account. The Prussians are winning everything, and are pushing on for
+Paris as hard as they can go. They have just taken Chalons. The battles
+have been _terrible_, and immense numbers have been killed and wounded
+on both sides. They have really fought to the death. The spirit of the
+two peoples seems to me entirely different. The French seem only to be
+possessed by a mad thirst for glory, and manifest a blood-thirstiness
+which is perfectly appalling. One reads the most revolting stories in
+the papers about their creeping around the battle-field after the battle
+is over, and killing and robbing the wounded Prussians, cutting out
+their tongues and putting out their eyes. The Prussians are so on the
+alert now, however, that I hope few such things can take place. One
+Prussian writes that he was lying wounded upon the field of battle, and
+another man was not far off in the same helpless condition, when an old
+Frenchman came up and clove this other man's head with a hatchet. The
+first screamed loudly for help, when a party of Prussians rushed up and
+rescued him, and overtook the old man, and shot him. We hear every day
+of some dreadful thing. O.'s cousin, who is just my age, and is three
+years married, has lost her husband, her favorite brother is fatally
+wounded with three balls and lies in the hospital, and her second
+brother has a shot in each leg and they don't know whether he will ever
+be able to walk again. He is a young fellow nineteen years old.
+
+In the first days after the war was declared, I felt as if no punishment
+could be too hot for Napoleon. The people just gave up everything, and
+stood in the streets all day long on each side of the railroad track.
+The trains passed every fifteen minutes, packed with the brave fellows
+who were going off to lose their lives on a mere pretext. Then there
+would be one continual cheering all along as they passed, and all the
+women would cry, and the men would execrate Napoleon. The Prussians
+don't seem to have any feelings of revenge, but regard the French as a
+set of lunatics whom they are going to bring to reason. The hatred of
+Napoleon is intense. They regard him as the leader of a people whom he
+has willfully blinded, and are determined to make an end of him, if
+possible. The Prussian army is such a splendid one that it is difficult
+to imagine that it can be overcome. You see everybody under a certain
+age is liable to be drafted, and no one is allowed to buy a substitute.
+So everybody is interested. Bismarck has two sons who are common
+soldiers, and all the ministers together have twelve sons in the war.
+Then the King and the Crown Prince being with the army, gives a great
+enthusiasm. The Crown Prince has distinguished himself, and seems to
+have great military ability. The King was very angry with Prince
+Friedrich Carl, because in the last battle he exposed one regiment so
+that it was completely mowed down. Only two or three men escaped. But it
+makes one groan for the poor Frenchmen when one sees these terrible
+great cannon passing by. The largest-sized ones were ordered for the
+storming of Metz, and each one requires twenty-four horses to draw it!
+
+
+
+
+WITH KULLAK.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     Moving. German Houses and Dinners. The War. The Capture of
+     Napoleon. Kullak's and Tausig's Teaching. Joachim. Wagner. Tausig's
+     Playing. German Etiquette.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _September_ 29, 1870.
+
+I must request you in future to direct your letters to No. 30
+Königgrätzer Strasse, as we move in three days. The people who live on
+the floor under us wouldn't bear my practicing for five or six hours
+daily, and so Frau W. has looked up another lodging. The German houses
+are about as uncomfortable as can be imagined. Only the newest ones have
+gas and water-works, or even the ordinary conveniences that _every_
+house has with us. No carpets on the floors, stiff, straight-backed
+chairs, precious little fire in cold weather, etc. The rooms have no
+closets, and one always has to have a great clumsy wardrobe with wooden
+pegs in it, instead of hooks, so that when you go to take down one dress
+all the others tumble down, too. In short, the Germans are fifty years
+behind us. Of course the rich people have superb houses, but I speak now
+of people in ordinary circumstances. I often look back upon the solid
+comfort of the Cambridge houses. I think people understand there pretty
+well how to live. I shall relish a good dinner when I come home, for
+this is the land where what we call "family dinners" are unknown. They
+have _parts_ of meals five times a day, but never a complete one. The
+meat is dreadful, and I never can tell what kind of an animal it grows
+on. They give me two boiled eggs for supper, so I manage to live, but O!
+_has_ beefsteak vanished into the land of dreams? and _is_ turkey but
+the figment of my disordered imagination? They have delicious bread and
+butter, but "man cannot live by bread alone." Mr. F. says that where
+_he_ boards they give him "pear soup, and cherry soup, and plum soup!"
+
+Everything here is saddened by this fearful war. You have no idea how
+frightful it is. The men on both sides are just being slaughtered by
+thousands. Haven't the Prussians made a magnificent campaign I declare,
+I think it is marvellous what they have done. The French haven't had the
+smallest success, and have had to give up one tremendous stronghold
+after another. It is expected that Metz will surrender in about eight
+days. It is a terrific place, and was believed to be impregnable. Over
+and over again the poor French have tried to cut through the Prussian
+army, and just so often they have been beaten back into the city.
+Finally they will have to give over. Their generals must be shameful,
+for they have fought to the death, but they can't make any headway
+against these formidable Prussians. The German papers say that the
+French fire too high, for one thing. They are not such practiced
+marksmen as the Germans, and their balls fly over the enemy's heads. The
+French are a savage people, however, and cruelty runs in their veins.
+One reads the most awful things, but for the credit of human nature it
+is to be hoped that the worst of them are not true.
+
+I believe I have not written to you since the capture of the Emperor
+Napoleon, which of course you heard of as soon as it happened. The
+Germans, as you may imagine, were completely carried away with the
+glorious news, and could scarcely believe in their own good fortune. On
+the 3d of September, when I came out to breakfast, Frau W. called out to
+me from behind the newspaper, with a face all ablaze with triumph and
+excitement, "_Der Kaiser Napoleon ist gefangen_. (The Emperor Napoleon
+is taken.)" "_No!_" said I, for it did not seem possible that anything
+so great and unexpected _could_ have happened. "It is _true_" said she;
+"look at this paper, which I just sent out for." The instant I saw that
+Frau W. had been guilty of the unwonted extravagance of purchasing the
+morning paper, it became clear to me that Napoleon _must_ have been
+taken prisoner. Generally we do not get the paper till it is a day old,
+when Frau W. brings it carefully home from her brother's in her
+capacious bag. He subscribes for it, and after his family have perused
+it, she borrows it for our benefit--an economical arrangement upon which
+she frequently congratulates herself.
+
+I fancy there was little work done or business transacted _that_ day in
+Berlin! After I had finished my coffee, I went and stood by the window
+and watched the people pour through the streets. Everybody streamed up
+Unter den Linden past the palace, their faces full of joy. The street
+boys took an active part in the general jollification, and were as
+ubiquitous as boys always are when anything extraordinary is going on.
+They conceived the brilliant idea of climbing up on the equestrian
+statue of Frederick the Great, which is just opposite the palace
+windows. The Crown Princess, who was looking out, immediately had it
+announced to them that he who got to the top first should receive a
+silver cup and some pieces of money. That was all the boys needed. Away
+they went, struggling and tumbling over each other like a swarm of bees.
+At last one little urchin secured the coveted position, and was
+afterward called up to the palace window to receive the prize.--If the
+Crown Princess, by the way, were more given to such little acts of
+generosity, she would be more popular by far, for the Germans sniff at
+her for being too economical. They are the closest possible economisers
+themselves, but they despise the trait in foreigners!
+
+At night there was a grand illumination in honour of the victory, and of
+course we all went to see it. Such a time as we had! The whole city was
+blazing with light, and all the large firms had put up something
+brilliant and striking before their places of business. Stars, eagles,
+crosses (after the celebrated "iron cross" of Prussia), beside countless
+tapers, were burning away in every direction, and all the carriages and
+droschkies in Berlin were slowly crawling along the streets, much
+impeded by the dense throng of pedestrians crowding through. All the
+private houses were lit up with tapers, and thousands of flags were
+flying. Over every public building and railroad station, and on all the
+public squares were transparencies in which the substantial form of
+_Germania_ flourished extensively, leaning upon her shield, and gazing
+sentimentally into vacancy. But I always enjoy "Germania." It seems a
+sort of recognition of the feminine element.
+
+We were in a droschkie, like other people, taking the prescribed tour
+round by the Rath-Haus (City-Hall), and were frequently brought to a
+stand-still by the crush. At such times we were the target for all the
+small boys standing in our neighbourhood. The "Berlinger Junge" is
+almost as famous for his talent for repartee as the Paris "Gamin." "Do
+be careful!" said one to me; "you will certainly tumble out, your
+carriage is going so fast." This was intended as a double sarcasm, for
+in the first place we were not in a carriage at all, but in a
+second-class droschkie, and in the second place we had been standing
+stock still for half an hour, and there was no prospect of getting
+started for half an hour more. Many more such little speeches were
+addressed to us which we pretended not to hear, though we were secretly
+much amused.--It was a strange sort of feeling to be put in the streets
+at night with this glare of light, these crowds of people, and this
+suppressed excitement in the air. I thought it gave some idea of the Day
+of Judgment.
+
+The women are tremendously patriotic and self-sacrificing, and they seem
+to be throwing themselves heart and soul into the war. With the
+catholicity of the female sex, however, they could not help taking a
+peep at the _French_ prisoners when they came on, but went to the
+station to see them arrive, and bestowed many little hospitalities upon
+them in the way of cigars, luncheon, etc., at all of which the papers
+were patriotically indignant, and indulged in many sarcasms on the "warm
+and sympathetic" reception given by the German women to their enemies.
+Quite as many women go into nursing as was the case in our own war. I
+know one young lady who spends her whole time in the hospitals among the
+wounded soldiers, who are all the time being sent on in ambulances. Her
+name is Fräulein Hezekiel, and she has received a decoration from the
+Government.
+
+Just after I wrote you last I went to Kullak, as I told you I should,
+and engaged him to give me one private lesson a week. He looks about
+fifty, and is charming. I am enchanted with him. He plays magnificently,
+and is a splendid teacher, but he gives me immensely much to do, and I
+feel as if a mountain of music were all the time pressing on my head. He
+is so occupied that I have to take my lesson from seven to eight in the
+evening.
+
+Tausig's conservatory closes on the first of October, and I feel very
+sorry, for my three grand friends, Mr. Trenkel, Mr. Weber and Mr.
+Beringer, are all going away, and I shall be awfully lonely without
+them. Weber is very handsome, and has the most splendid forehead I think
+I ever saw. He composes like an angel, besides being remarkably clever
+in every way. He will be famous some day, I know, and he belongs to the
+Music of the Future. Beringer is poetic, passionate and vivid. He has
+golden hair and golden eyes, I may say, for they are of a peculiar light
+hazel, almost yellow, but with a warmth and sunniness, and often a
+tenderness of expression that is extremely fascinating. Weber cannot
+speak English, and as he is from Switzerland, he speaks an entirely
+different dialect from the Berlinese, so that it took me some time to
+understand him. He is a perfect child of nature, and has a great deal of
+humour. He and Beringer are devoted friends, and are about my age.
+Trenkel is older. He has the blackest hair and eyes, and a dark Italian
+skin. He is intellectual and highly cultured, and at the same time such
+a very peculiar character that he interested me greatly. Most of his
+life has been spent in America: first in Boston, where he seems to know
+everybody, and afterwards in San Francisco, whither he is about to
+return. He has been studying with Tausig for two years, and is a
+heavenly musician, though he hasn't Beringer's great technique and
+passion. His conception is more of the Chopin order, extremely finely
+shaded and "filed out," as the Germans have it.
+
+It was so pleasant to have these three musical friends, who all play so
+much better than I, as they often met and made lovely music in my little
+room. Weber and Beringer took tea with us only yesterday evening. Weber
+was in one of his good moods, and played to Beringer and me his most
+beautiful compositions for ever so long. We settled ourselves
+comfortably, one in two chairs, the other on the sofa, and enjoyed it.
+The Andante out of a great sonata he is composing, is perfectly lovely.
+It is entirely original, and different from any music I have ever heard.
+Then he played the second movement of his symphony, and it is the most
+exquisite _morceau_ you can imagine. I asked him to compose a little
+piece for me, and so yesterday morning he sat down and wrote seven
+mazurkas, one after the other. Whether he actually gives me one is
+another matter, for, like all geniuses, he is not very prodigal with his
+gifts, and is not very easy to come at. But I would like to have even
+four bars written by him, for he is so individual that it would be worth
+keeping.
+
+Weber looks perfectly charming when he plays. He never glances at the
+keys, but his large blue eyes gaze dreamily into vacancy, and his noble
+brow stands out white and lofty. His conception is extremely musical,
+but as he only practices when he feels like it (as he does everything
+else), he doesn't come up to the other two. Tausig burst out laughing at
+him at his last lesson. That individual, by the way, came back as
+suddenly as he went off, but announced that he would give no more
+lessons except to these favoured three. All the rest of us had to go
+begging. It didn't make so much difference to me, as I had already gone
+to Kullak, who is now the first teacher in Germany, as all the greatest
+virtuosi have given up teaching.
+
+Kullak himself is a truly splendid artist, which I had not expected. He
+used to have great fame here as a pianist, but I supposed that as he had
+given up his concert playing he did not keep it up. I found, however,
+that I was mistaken. His playing does not suffer in comparison with
+Tausig's even, whom I have so often heard. Why in the world he has not
+continued playing in public I can't imagine, but I am told that he was
+too nervous. Like all artists, he is fascinating, and full of his whims
+and caprices. He knows everything in the way of music, and when I take
+my lessons he has two grand pianos side by side, and he sits at one and
+I at the other. He knows by heart everything that he teaches, and he
+plays sometimes with me, sometimes before me, and shows me all sorts of
+ways of playing passages. I am getting no end of ideas from him. I have
+enjoyed playing my Beethoven Concerto so much, for he has played all the
+orchestral parts. Just think how exciting to have a great artist like
+that play second piano with you! I am going to learn one by Chopin next.
+
+Kullak is not nearly so terrible a teacher as Tausig. He has the
+greatest patience and gentleness, and helps you on; but Tausig keeps
+rating you and telling you, what you feel only too deeply, that your
+playing _is_ "awful." When Tausig used to sit down in his impatient way
+and play a few bars, and then tell me to do it just so, I used always to
+feel as if some one wished me to copy a streak of forked lightning with
+the end of a wetted match. At the last lesson Tausig gave me, however,
+he entirely changed his tone, and was extremely sweet to me. I think he
+regretted having made me cry at the previous lesson, for just as I sat
+down to play, he turned to the class and made some little joke about
+these "_empfindliche Amerikanerinnen_ (sensitive Americans)." Then he
+came and stood by me, and nothing could have been gentler than his
+manner. After I had finished, he sat down and played the whole piece
+for me, a thing he rarely does, introducing a magnificent trill in
+double thirds, and ending up with some peculiar turn in which he allowed
+his virtuosity to peep out at me for a moment. Only for a moment though,
+for he is much too proud and has too much contempt for _Spectakel_ to
+"show off," so he suppressed himself immediately. It was as if his
+fingers broke into the trill in spite of him, and he had to pull them up
+with a severe check. Strange, inscrutable being that he is!
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _October 13, 1870_.
+
+My room in our new lodging is a charming one. Quite large, and a front
+one, and there is no _vis-á-vis_. We look right over across the street
+into Prince Albrecht's Garden. It is very uncommon to have such a nice
+outlook, particularly in Berlin. But it is so long since I have lived
+among trees that at first it affected my spirits dreadfully. As I sit by
+my window and hear the autumn wind rushing through them, and see all the
+leaves quivering and shaking, and think that they have only a few short
+weeks more to sway in the breeze, it makes me wretched. I suppose that
+we shall now have two months of dismal weather.
+
+I wish you were here to counsel me over my dresses. I have just bought
+two--one for a street dress, and the other for demi-evening toilette,
+but heaven only knows when they will be done, or how they will fit! You
+ought to see the biases of the dresses here! They all go zig-zag. The
+Berlin dressmakers are abominable. Mrs.----, of the Legation, told me
+that when she first came here she cried over every new dress she had
+made, and I could not sufficiently rejoice last winter that I had got
+all my things before I sailed. M. E., too, who gets all her best things
+from Paris, told M. she was never so happy as when her mother sent her
+over an "American dress."--"They are _so_ comfortable and _so_
+satisfactory," said she.
+
+Yesterday I took my fourth lesson of Kullak. He plays much more to me
+than Tausig did, and I am surprised to see how much I have got on in
+four weeks. Tausig didn't deign to do more than play occasional
+passages, and we had only one piano in the room where he taught. But at
+Kullak's there are two grand pianos side by side. He sits at one and I
+at the other, and as he knows everything by heart which he teaches, as I
+told you, he keeps playing with me or before me, so that I catch it a
+great deal better. Sometimes he will repeat a passage over and over, and
+I after him, like a parrot, until I get it _exactly_ right. He has this
+excessively finished and elegant fantasia style of playing, like
+Thalberg or De Meyer. He has great fame as a teacher, and is perhaps
+more celebrated in this respect than Tausig, but I was with Tausig too
+short a time to judge personally which teaches the best.
+
+This war is perfectly awful. The men are simply being slaughtered like
+cattle. New regiments are all the time being sent on. The Prussians have
+taken over two hundred thousand prisoners, to say nothing of the killed
+and wounded. But they lose fearful numbers themselves also. It is
+expected in a few days that Metz will surrender. It is a tremendous
+stronghold, and contains an army of fifty thousand men. But isn't it
+extraordinary how disastrous the war has been to the French? They had an
+immense army of several hundred thousand men. And then they had all the
+advantages of position. The Prussians have had to fight their way
+through all these strong defences one after another. They will soon
+bombard Paris. As Herr S. says, this war is a disgrace to the
+governments. He says that they ought to have united against it (America
+included), and to have said that on such an unjust pretext they would
+not permit it. I read the other day a most touching letter that was
+found on the dead body of a common soldier from his old peasant father.
+He said, "What have we poor people done that the _lieber Gott_ visits us
+with such fearful judgments? When I got thy letter, my dear son, saying
+that thou art safe come out of the last battle with thy brother, I fell
+on my knees and thanked God for His goodness." Then he goes on to
+describe the joy of his mother and sister and sweetheart, and how he
+read his letter to all the neighbours, "who rejoiced much at thy
+safety," and his hope and confidence that his son would return alive to
+his old father. But in a few days his son fell in another battle,
+desperately wounded. He was carried to the house of a lady who did all
+she could for him, but he died, and she sent this letter to the paper.
+Do you get many of the anecdotes in the American papers? Such as that of
+the three hundred and two horses which, at the usual signal after the
+battle that called the regiments together, came back riderless? I think
+that was very touching in the poor things.[C] Or have you heard of the
+Frenchman who, when informed that the Emperor was taken prisoner, coolly
+replied: "_Moi aussi!_" But these are already old stories, and you have
+doubtless heard them. I think one of the worst incidents of the war is
+that bomb that fell into a girls' school at Strasbourg. When one thinks
+of innocent young girls having their eyes torn out, and being killed and
+wounded, it seems too terrible.--I always pity the poor horses so much.
+At the surrender of Sedan, the French forgot to detach them from the
+cannon, and to give them food and drink. Finally, frantic with thirst,
+they broke themselves loose and rushed wildly through the streets. It
+was said that any body could have a horse for the trouble of catching
+him.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _November 25, 1870_.
+
+I went last week to hear Joachim, who lives here, and is giving his
+annual series of quartette soirees. Oh! he is a wonderful genius, and
+the sublimest artist I have yet heard. I am amazed afresh every time I
+hear him. He draws the most extraordinary _tone_ from his violin, and
+such a powerful one that it seems sometimes as if several were playing.
+Then his expression is so marvellous that he holds complete sway over
+his audience from the moment he begins till he ceases. He possesses
+magnetic power to the highest degree.
+
+On Saturday night I went to a superb concert given for the benefit of
+the wounded. The royal orchestra played, and as it was in the
+Sing-Akademie, where the acoustic is very remarkable, the orchestral
+performance seemed phenomenal. Generally, this orchestra plays in the
+opera house, which is so much larger that the effect is not so great.
+The last thing they played was the "Ritt der Walküren," by Wagner. It
+was the first time it was given in Berlin, and it is a wonderful
+composition. It represents the ride of the Walküre-maidens into
+Valhalla, and when you hear it it seems as if you could really see the
+spectral horses with their ghostly riders. It produces the most
+unearthly effect at the end, and one feels as if one had suddenly
+stepped into Pandemonium. I was perfectly enchanted with it, and
+everybody was excited. The "bravos" resounded all over the house. Tausig
+played Chopin's E minor concerto in his own glorious style. He did his
+very best, and when he got through not only the whole orchestra was
+applauding him, but even the conductor was rapping his desk with his
+bâton like mad. I thought to myself it was a proud position where a man
+could excite enthusiasm in the hearts of these old and tried musicians.
+As a specimen of his virtuosity, what do you say to the little feat of
+playing the running passage at the end, two pages long, and which was
+written for both hands in unison, in octaves instead of single
+notes?--Gigantic! [Later Kullak gave this great concerto to my sister to
+study, and as she was struggling with its difficulties he said: "Ah yes,
+Fräulein, when I think of the time and labour I spent over that concerto
+in my youth, I could weep _tears of blood_!"]--ED.
+
+Yesterday evening I went to a party at the house of a relative of the
+M.'s. Madame de Stael was right in saying that etiquette is terribly
+severe in Germany. It is downright law, and everybody is obliged to
+submit to it. What other people in the world, for example, would insist
+on your coming at eight and remaining until nearly four in the morning,
+when the party consists of a dozen or twenty people, almost all of them
+married and middle-aged, or elderly? I nearly expire of fatigue and
+ennui, but they would all take it so ill if I didn't go, that there is
+no escape. Last night I came home with such a dreadful nervous headache
+from sheer exhaustion, that I could scarcely see. You know in a dancing
+party the excitement keeps one up, and one doesn't feel the fatigue
+until afterward. But to sit three mortal hours before supper, and keep
+up a conversation with a lot of people much older than yourself in whom
+you have not the slightest interest, and in a foreign language, when you
+wouldn't be brilliant in your own, and then another long three hours at
+the supper table, and then _still_ an hour or so afterwards, to an
+American mind is terrible! I always groan in spirit when I think how
+comfortably I used to jump into the carriage at nine o'clock, in
+Cambridge, go to the party, and come home at half-past eleven or
+twelve. These long parties are what the Germans call being "_gemüthlig_
+(sociable and friendly)." The French would call them "_assommant_," and
+they would be entirely in the right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     Concerts. Joachim again. The Siege of Paris. Peace Declared.
+     Wagner. A Woman's Symphony. Ovation to Wagner in Berlin.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _December 11, 1870_.
+
+I haven't been doing much of anything lately, except going to concerts,
+of which I have heard an immense number, and all of them admirable.--I
+wish you _could_ hear Joachim! I went last night to his third soiree,
+and he certainly is the wonder of the age. Unless I were to _rave_ I
+never could express him. One of his pieces was a quartette by Haydn,
+which was perfectly bewitching. The adagio he played so wonderfully, and
+drew such a pathetic tone from his violin, that it really went through
+one like a knife. The third movement was a jig, and just the gayest
+little piece! It flashed like a humming bird, and he played every note
+so distinctly and so fast that people were beside themselves, and it was
+almost impossible to keep still. It received a tremendous encore.
+
+Joachim is so bold! You never imagined such strokes as he gives the
+violin--such tones as he brings out of it. He plays these great _tours
+de force_, his fingers rushing all over the violin, just as Tausig
+dashes down on the piano. So free! And then his conception!! It is like
+revealing Beethoven in the flesh, to hear him.
+
+I heard a lady pianist the other day, who is becoming very celebrated
+and who plays superbly. Her name is Fräulein Menter, and she is from
+Munich. She has been a pupil of Liszt, Tausig and Bülow. Think what a
+galaxy of teachers! She is as pretty as she can be, and she looked
+lovely sitting at the piano there and playing piece after piece. I
+envied her dreadfully. She plays everything by heart, and has a
+beautiful conception. She gave her concert entirely alone, except that
+some one sang a few songs, and at the end Tausig played a duet for two
+pianos with her, in which he took the second piano. Imagine being able
+to play well enough for such a high artist as he to condescend to do
+such a thing! It was so pretty when they were encored. He made a sign to
+go forward. She looked up inquiringly, and then stepped down one step
+lower than he. He smiled and applauded her as much as anybody. I thought
+it was very gallant in him to stand there and clap his hands before the
+whole audience, and not take any of the encore to himself, for his part
+was as important as hers, and he is a much greater artist. I was charmed
+with her, though. She goes far beyond Mehlig and Topp, though Mehlig,
+too, is considered to have a remarkable technique.
+
+I regret so much that M. will have to go back to America without seeing
+Paris--the most beautiful city in the world! Nobody knows how long the
+war is going to last. The Prussians have so surrounded Paris that it is
+cut off from the country, and can't get any supplies. They have eaten up
+all their meat, and now the French are living upon rats, dogs and cats!
+Just think how horrid! They catch the rats in the Paris sewers, and
+cook them in champagne and eat them. (At least that is the story.) It
+seems perfectly inconceivable. The poor things have no milk, no salt, no
+butter and no meat. I wonder what they do with all the little babies
+whose mothers can't nurse them, and with young children. They will not
+give up, however, for they have bread and wine enough to last all
+winter, and they declare that Paris is too strong to be taken. Of course
+if the Prussians remain where they are, eventually Paris will be starved
+out, and will be obliged to surrender.
+
+It is a difficult position for the Prussians, for they must either
+bombard the city, or starve it out. If they bombard it, they must be in
+a situation to begin it from all sides, or else the French will break
+through their lines, and establish a communication with the rest of
+France. Now the circle round Paris is twelve miles long, so that it
+would take an enormous army to keep up such a bombardment, and although
+the Prussian army _is_ enormous, I don't know whether it is equal to
+that, for the French have so much the advantage of position that they
+can fire down on the Prussians, and kill them by thousands. On the other
+hand, if they starve Paris out, the poor soldiers will have to lie out
+in the cold all winter, and many of them will die from the exposure.
+
+The men are getting very restless from so many weeks of inactivity.
+Nobody knows how it is to end. The King is opposed to bombardment, for
+aside from the terrible loss of life it would cause, it seems too
+inhuman to lay such a splendid city in the dust. Fresh troops are sent
+on all the time, and every day the trains pass my windows packed with
+soldiers. It seems as if every man in Germany were being called out, and
+that looks like bombardment. It is a terrible time, and everybody feels
+restless and disturbed. One sees few soldiers on the streets except
+wounded ones. I often meet a young man who is wheeled about in a chair,
+who has had both legs cut off. The poor fellow looks so sad--and I know
+of another who has lost both hands and both feet.
+
+It is curious to note the condescending attitude taken by people here
+toward the French in this war. They never for a moment speak of them as
+if they were antagonists on equal ground, but always as if they were a
+set of fools bent on their own destruction, who must be properly
+chastised and restored to their equilibrium by the Germans. "_Ja!--die
+Franzosen!_" the Germans will say with a shrug which implies the deepest
+conviction of their entire imbecility. They admit, however, that the
+French are an "amusing people," and that "_Paris ist_ DOCH _die
+Welt-Stadt_. (Paris is _the_ city of the world.)"
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _February 26, 1871_.
+
+I am going to send you a song out of the Meistersänger, which I think is
+one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. It is called Walther's
+Traumlied (Walter's Dream Song). The idea of it is that he sees his love
+in a dream or vision as she will be when she is his wife. You must
+begin to sing in a dreamy way, as if you were in a trance, and then you
+must gradually become more and more excited until you end in a grand
+gush of passion. You will be quite in the music of the future if you
+sing out of the Meistersänger. It is one of Wagner's greatest operas,
+and is very beautiful, in my opinion. It caused a grand excitement when
+it came out last winter.
+
+The whole musical world is in a quarrel over Wagner. He is giving a new
+direction to music and is finding out new combinations of the chords.
+Half the musical world upholds him, and declares that in the future he
+will stand on a par with Beethoven and Mozart. The other half are
+bitterly opposed to him, and say that he writes nothing but dissonances,
+and that he is on an entirely false track. I am on the Wagner side
+myself. He seems to me to be a great genius.--Pity he is such a moral
+outlaw!
+
+Since I began this letter Paris has capitulated, and PEACE has been
+declared. The anxiety and suspense have lasted so long, however, that
+the news did not cause much excitement or enthusiasm. Nothing like that
+with which the capture of Napoleon was received. But that was decidedly
+_the_ event of the war. The politic Bismarck would not allow the troops
+to march triumphantly through Paris, but only permitted them to pass
+through as small a corner of it as was consistent with the national
+honour. This has caused a good deal of murmuring and discontent among
+the Germans.--"Our poor soldiers! after all their fatigues and
+hardships, they ought have been allowed the satisfaction of marching
+through the city!"--is the general opinion I hear expressed. However,
+they will probably acquiesce in Bismarck's wisdom in not triumphing over
+a fallen foe when they come to think it over. We are now to have six
+weeks of mourning for those who have been killed in the war, and then in
+May the army will come back in triumph. The King is to meet them at the
+Brandenburger Gate, and lead them up the Linden. All Berlin will be wild
+with excitement, and I expect it will be a great sight. The windows on
+Unter den Linden are already selling at enormous prices for the
+occasion.
+
+The Germans, by the way, "take no stock" at all in the King's pious
+expressions throughout the campaign. They laugh at him greatly for
+calling himself victorious "by the grace of God." "Such a nonsense!"
+Herr J. says, contemptuously.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _April 22, 1871_.
+
+I haven't a mortal thing to say, for all the little I have done I
+communicated in a letter to N. S. Kullak has been praising my playing
+lately, but I cannot believe in it myself. I have been learning a
+Ballade of Liszt's. It is beautiful but very hard, and with some
+terrific octave passages in it. It has the double roll of octaves in it,
+and this is the first time I ever learned how it was done. I am now
+studying octaves systematically. Kullak has written three books of them,
+and it is an exhaustive work on the subject, and as famous in its way as
+the Gradus ad Parnassum. The first volume is only the preparation, and
+the exercises are for each hand separately. There are a lot of them for
+the thumb alone, for instance. Then there are others for the fourth and
+fifth fingers, turning over and under each other in every conceivable
+way. Then there are the wrist exercises, and, in short, it is the most
+minute and complete work. Kullak himself is celebrated for his octave
+playing. That I knew when I was in Tausig's conservatory, as Tausig used
+to tell his scholars that they must study Kullak's Octave School.
+
+Wagner has come to Berlin for a visit, and next week he will have a
+grand concert, when some of his compositions are to be brought out, and
+he will, himself, conduct. Weitzmann says that he is a great conductor.
+I heard his opera of Tannhaüser the other day, and I was perfectly
+carried away with the overture, which I had not heard for a long time.
+The orchestra played it magnificently, and I think it quite equal to
+Beethoven. Wagner's theory is that music is a cry of the mind, and his
+compositions certainly illustrate it. All other music pales before it in
+passion and intensity.
+
+Did you read my letter to N. S. in which I told her about Alicia Hund,
+who composed and conducted a symphony? That is quite a step for women in
+the musical line. She reminded me of M., as she had just such a
+high-strung face. All the men were highly disgusted because she was
+allowed to conduct the orchestra herself. I didn't think myself that it
+was a very _becoming_ position, though I had no prejudice against it.
+Somehow, a woman doesn't look well with a bâton in her hand directing a
+body of men.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _May 18, 1871_.
+
+Wagner has just been in Berlin, and his arrival here has been the
+occasion of a grand musical excitement. He was received with the
+greatest enthusiasm, and there was no end of ovations in his honour.
+First, there was a great supper given to him, which was got up by Tausig
+and a few other distinguished musicians. Then on Sunday, two weeks ago,
+was given a concert in the Sing-Akademie, where the seats were free. As
+the hall only holds about fifteen hundred people, you may imagine it was
+pretty difficult to get tickets. I didn't even attempt it, but luckily
+Weitzmann, my harmony teacher, who is an old friend of Wagner's, sent me
+one.
+
+The orchestra was immense. It was carefully selected from all the
+orchestras in Berlin, and Stern, who directed it, had given himself
+infinite trouble in training it. Wagner is the most difficult person in
+the world to please, and is a wonderful conductor himself. He was highly
+discontented with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipsic, which thinks
+itself the best in existence, so the Berlinese felt rather shaky. The
+hall was filled to overflowing, and finally, in marched Wagner and his
+wife, preceded and followed by various distinguished musicians. As he
+appeared the audience rose, the orchestra struck up three clanging
+chords, and everybody shouted _Hoch!_ It gave one a strange thrill.
+
+The concert was at twelve, and was preceded by a "greeting" which was
+recited by Frau Jachmann Wagner, a niece of Wagner's, and an actress.
+She was a pretty woman, "fair, fat and forty," and an excellent speaker.
+As she concluded she burst into tears, and stepping down from the stage
+she presented Wagner with a laurel crown, and kissed him. Then the
+orchestra played Wagner's Faust Overture most superbly, and afterwards
+his Fest March from the Tannhäuser. The applause was unbounded. Wagner
+ascended the stage and made a little speech, in which he expressed his
+pleasure to the musicians and to Stern, and then turned and addressed
+the audience. He spoke very rapidly and in that child-like way that all
+great musicians seem to have, and as a proof of his satisfaction with
+the orchestra he requested them to play the Faust Overture under _his_
+direction. We were all on tiptoe to know how he would direct, and indeed
+it was wonderful to see him. He controlled the orchestra as if it were a
+single instrument and he were playing on it. He didn't beat the time
+simply, as most conductors do, but he had all sorts of little ways to
+indicate what he wished. It was very difficult for them to follow him,
+and they had to "keep their little eye open," as B. used to say. He held
+them down during the first part, so as to give the uncertainty and
+speculativeness of Faust's character. Then as Mephistopheles came in, he
+gradually let them loose with a terrible crescendo, and made you feel as
+if hell suddenly gaped at your feet. Then where Gretchen appeared, all
+was delicious melody and sweetness. And so it went on, like a succession
+of pictures. The effect was tremendous.
+
+I had one of the best seats in the house, and could see Wagner and his
+wife the whole time. He has an enormous forehead, and is the most
+nervous-looking man you can imagine, but has that grim setting of the
+mouth that betokens an iron will. When he conducts he is almost beside
+himself with excitement. That is one reason why he is so great as a
+conductor, for the orchestra catches his frenzy, and each man plays
+under a sudden inspiration. He really seems to be improvising on his
+orchestra.
+
+Wagner's object in coming here was to try and get his Nibelungen opera
+performed. It is an opera which requires four evenings to get through
+with. Did you ever hear of such a thing? He lays out everything on such
+a colossal scale. It reminded me of that story they tell of him when he
+was a boy. He was a great Shakespeare enthusiast, and wanted to write
+plays, too. So he wrote one in which he killed off forty of the
+principal characters in the last act! He gave a grand concert in the
+opera house here, which he directed himself. It was entirely his own
+compositions, with the exception of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which he
+declared nobody understood but himself. That rather took down Berlin,
+but all had to acknowledge after the concert that they had never heard
+it so magnificently played. He has his own peculiar conception of it.
+There was a great crowd, and every seat had been taken long before. All
+the artists were present except Kullak, who was ill. I saw Tausig
+sitting in the front rank with the Baroness von S. There must have been
+two hundred players in the orchestra, and they acquitted themselves
+splendidly. The applause grew more and more enthusiastic, until it
+finally found vent in a shower of wreaths and bouquets. Wagner bowed and
+bowed, and it seemed as if the people would never settle down again. At
+the end of the concert followed another shower of flowers, and his
+Kaiser March was encored. Such an effect! After the tempest of sound of
+the introduction the drums came in with a sharp tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
+Then the brass began with the air and came to a crescendo, at last
+_blaring_ out in such a way as shivered you to the very marrow of your
+bones. It was like an earthquake yawning before you.
+
+The noise was so tremendous that it was like the roaring of the surf. I
+never conceived of anything in music to approach it, and Wagner made me
+think of a giant Triton disporting himself amid the billows and tossing
+these great waves of sound from one hand to the other. You don't see his
+face, of course--nothing but his back, and yet you know every one of his
+emotions. Every sinew in his body speaks. He makes the instruments
+prolong the tones as no one else does, and the effect is indescribably
+beautiful, yet he complains that he never _can_ get an orchestra to
+_hold_ the tone as they ought. His whole appearance is of arrogance and
+despotism personified.
+
+By the end of the concert the bouquets were so heaped on the stage in
+front of the director's desk, that Wagner had no place left big enough
+to stand on without crushing them. Altogether, it was a brilliant
+affair, and a great triumph for his friends. He has a great many bitter
+enemies here, however. Joachim is one of them, though it seems
+unaccountable that a man of his musical gifts should be. Ehlert is also
+a strong anti-Wagnerite, and the Jews hate him intensely.--Perhaps his
+character has something to do with it, for he has set all laws of
+honour, gratitude and morality at defiance all his life long. It is a
+dreadful example for younger artists, and I think Wagner is depraving
+them. In this country everything is forgiven to audacity and genius, and
+I must say that if Germany can teach _us_ Music, we can teach _her_
+morals!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Difficulties of the Piano. Triumphal Entry of the Troops. Paris.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _June 25, 1871_.
+
+I have been learning Beethoven's G major Concerto lately, and it is the
+most horribly difficult thing I've ever attempted. I have practiced the
+first movement a whole month, and I can't play it any more than I can
+fly. If you hear Miss Mehlig play it, I trust you will take in what a
+feat it is. Kullak gave me a regular rating over it at my last lesson,
+and told me I must stick to it till I _could_ play it. It requires the
+greatest rapidity and facility of execution, and I get perfectly
+desperate over it. Kullak took advantage of the occasion to expand upon
+all the things an artist must be able to do, until my heart died within
+me. "What do you know of double thirds?" said he. I had to admit that I
+knew nothing of double thirds, and then he rushed down the piano like
+lightning from top to bottom in a scale in double thirds, just as if it
+were a common scale.
+
+In one respect Kullak is a more discouraging teacher than Tausig, for
+Tausig only played occasionally before you, where it was absolutely
+necessary, and contented himself with scolding and blaming. Kullak, on
+the contrary, doesn't scold much, but as he plays continually before and
+with you, with him you see how the thing _ought_ to be done, and the
+perception of your own deficiencies stands out before you mercilessly.
+My constant thought is, "When _will_ my passages pearl? When _will_ my
+touch be perfectly equal? When _will_ my octaves be played from a
+lightly-hung wrist? When _will_ my trill be brilliant and sustained?
+When _will_ my thumb turn under and my fourth finger over without the
+slightest perceptible break? When _will_ my arpeggios go up the piano in
+that peculiar _roll_ that a genuine artist gives?" etc., etc. All this
+gives a heavy heart, and so disinclines me to write that you must excuse
+my frequent silences.
+
+We are having such a horrid cold summer that I sit and shiver all the
+time. I wish we could have a little of the hot weather you speak of. I
+have put on a muslin dress only once. Berlin is a very severe climate, I
+think.
+
+The week before last was the triumphal entry or "Einzug" of the troops.
+They all went past my window, so I had a full view of them. The Emperor
+had made immense preparations, for he is very proud of his army. All
+along the Königgrätzer Strasse (the street we live in), to the
+Brandenburger Gate, a distance of two or three miles, were set tall
+poles at intervals of a few feet, connected by wreaths of green. These
+were painted red and white, and had gilded pinnacles; they were
+surmounted by the Prussian flag, which is black and white, with a black
+eagle in the centre. About half way down the poles was set a coat of
+arms, with the flags of the older German States grouped about it. As
+they were of different colours, the effect was very gay, and they made
+a triumphal path of waving banners for the troops to pass under. All
+along the last part of the Königgrätzer Strasse, before you come to the
+Linden, were set the French cannon which were captured, and on them was
+printed the name of the place where the battle was, and one read on them
+"Metz, Sedan, Strasburg," etc. All up the Linden, too, the way for the
+soldiers was hemmed in on each side with cannon. The mitrailleuses
+interested me the most, because they had thirty bores in each one, and
+could fire as many balls in succession. In this way, you see, a single
+cannon could _rain_ shot. Luckily the French aim so badly that they
+couldn't have killed half so many Prussians as they expected. On every
+Platz (as the Germans call the squares), were columns and statues set
+up, and enormous scaffolds for people to sit on, all decked out with
+flags and coloured cloth. In short, the whole city was got up in gala
+array, and looked as gay as possible.
+
+Of course there were thousands of strangers who had come on to see it,
+and the streets were crowded. For about a week beforehand there was one
+continual stream of people going by our house, and a long line of
+carriages and droschkies as far as one could see, creeping along at a
+snail's pace behind each other. I got worn out with the noise and
+confusion long before the eventful day came. When it _did_ arrive,
+already at six o'clock in the morning, when I looked out of my window,
+the walls of Prince Albrecht's garden opposite were covered with boys
+and men, and there they had to sit until nearly twelve o'clock, with
+their legs dangling down, and nothing to eat or drink, before the
+procession came by, and _then_ it took four hours to pass! Such is
+German endurance, and a still more striking instance of it was shown by
+an orchestra stationed on the sidewalk opposite my window. There were no
+seats or awnings for them, and there they stood on the stones in the hot
+sun for fully six hours, playing every little while on those heavy
+French horns and trumpets. Just imagine it! I was astonished that there
+was no scaffold erected for them to sit on, and wondered how the poor
+fellows could _stand_ it.
+
+Just before eleven o'clock the gate of Prince Albrecht's garden flew
+open, and out he rode, accompanied by a large suite, and they remained
+there awaiting the Emperor, who was to ride by on his way to meet the
+troops. I wish you could have seen them in their superb uniforms, seated
+on their magnificent horses. They looked like knights of the olden time,
+with their embroidered saddle-cloths and gay trappings. Preceding the
+Emperor came the Empress and all the ladies of the royal family in about
+ten carriages, each one with six horses and the Empress's with eight.
+The ladies were gorgeously dressed, of course, in light coloured silks
+with lace over-dresses. Then came the Emperor and his escort, riding
+slowly and majestically along. The enthusiasm was immense as they passed
+by, and they were indeed a proud sight. Bismarck, Moltke and Von Roon
+rode in one row by themselves. Bismarck looked very imposing in his
+uniform entirely of white and silver, with enormous top-boots, and a
+brazen helmet surmounted by a silver eagle. There was every variety of
+uniform, and the Crown Prince looked very handsome in his. He is a
+splendid-looking man, with a very soldierly bearing, and he rides to
+perfection.
+
+The royal party went out to the parade ground, where they met the army,
+and then returned at the head of it, riding very slowly. Then, for four
+hours, the soldiers poured by at a very quick step. If you could have
+seen that _river_ of men roll along, you would have some idea of the
+strength of this nation. They were tall for the most part, and their
+helmets and guns glittered in the sun. They were dressed in their old
+uniforms, just as they came from the field of battle. The people
+showered wreaths and bouquets upon them as they passed, and every man
+presented a festal appearance with his helmet crowned, a bouquet on the
+point of his bayonet, and flowers in his button hole. The Emperor's way
+was literally carpeted with flowers, and his grooms rode behind him
+picking them up, and hanging the wreaths upon their saddle-bows.
+Bismarck, Moltke and Von Roon and all the men of mark during the war
+were similarly favoured.
+
+The army marched along at an astonishingly quick pace. I was surprised
+to see them walk so fast, heavily laden as they were with their guns and
+knapsacks and blankets, etc. Many of them had been marching a good part
+of the night to get to the place of rendezvous, and they had had a
+parade early in the morning. A good many of them fainted and had to be
+carried out of the ranks, and eight of them died! It was the hottest day
+we have had this summer.--I was the most interested in the Uhlanen. They
+were the greatest terror of the French, and were light cavalry with no
+arms except a large pistol and a lance. Just below the head of the
+lance was a little Prussian flag attached, and nearly every one was
+splashed with the blood of some poor Frenchman. When one looked at those
+terrible spikes, it seemed a most dreadful death, and I don't wonder
+that the French lost all courage at the sight of them. You see, being on
+horseback and so lightly armed, the Uhlanen could go about like
+lightning, and were able to appear suddenly at the most unexpected
+points. As I was not on the Linden I did not see the army received at
+the Brandenburger Gate by the four hundred young ladies dressed in
+white, so I can't give you any account of _that_. Bismarck, who always
+knows what to do, took a handful of wreaths from his saddle-bow, and
+flung them smilingly over among the welcoming maidens. He is a courtly
+creature. I was nearly dead from just looking out of my window, and
+listening to the continual music of the bands, and I did not get over
+the fatigue and nervous excitement for several days; but I was very
+fortunate to be able to see it from the house, for many persons who had
+to sit on the scaffolds were dreadfully burned, and were thrown into a
+fever by it. You see they weren't allowed to put up their parasols, as
+that obscured the view of the people behind them. I had one friend who
+suffered awfully with her face, and did not sleep for three nights. She
+said it was as if she had been burnt by fire, and the whole skin peeled
+off.
+
+July 4th.--As usual, it is over a week since I began this letter, and I
+have just decided to start at once on a summer journey with Mrs. and
+Miss V. N., Mr. P. and Mrs., Mr. and Miss S. Kullak is away for his
+vacation, so I shall lose no lessons. We shall go first to Cologne and
+then to Bonn and Coblentz and down the Rhine. Perhaps we shall get as
+far as Heidelberg. We got one of those return tickets, which makes the
+journey very cheap; only you are limited to a certain time. We expect to
+be gone until the 1st of August. I intend to walk a great deal between
+the different points. Where the scenery is picturesque we shall
+occasionally walk from station to station. We take no baggage except a
+little bag (which we sling over our backs with straps), containing a
+change of linen and a brush and comb and tooth brush. We shall wear the
+same dress all the time and have our linen washed at the hotel. I
+thought it was a good chance for me, and as we shall be a party of
+embryo artists, we expect to go along in the Bohemian and happy-go-lucky
+style of our class. I think of writing a novel on the way! Won't it be
+romantic? Only, unluckily for Miss S. and myself, we shall have no
+adorers, as Mr. P. and Miss V. G. are engaged, and Mr. S. is only about
+eighteen!
+
+Just before the Einzug I was at a party at the Bancroft's, and was
+standing near a doorway talking to one of N.'s class-mates in Harvard,
+when a portly gentleman pushed very rudely between us and stood there
+talking to Mr. Bancroft, who was on the other side of me. We gazed at
+him for a minute before we went on with our conversation. Presently the
+gentleman took his leave and bustled away. "That was the Duke of
+Somerset," said Mr. Bancroft to me. I was rather surprised, for I had
+just been thinking to myself, "What an unmannerly creature you are!"--I
+suppose he had come on to the Einzug.
+
+Triumphant Berlin, by the way, is rather a contrast to Paris under the
+Commune. Such a horrible time as they have been having there! It is
+enough to make one's blood run cold to think of it. What insane
+barbarians they are--and the worst of it is the part the women take in
+it. I saw a picture of Thiers' house which they burnt down. It was a
+magnificent mansion, and crammed full of exquisite works of art. Mr.
+Bancroft grieved over it, for he had dined there, and knew what
+treasures it contained. He said it was one of the most beautiful houses
+he had ever been in.--And then the idea of pulling down the column of
+the Place Vendome! Napoleon had built it from cannon which he had
+captured in his great battles and melted down, so that in a special
+manner it was a monument of their victories over other nations. There is
+a stupidity about them which makes them perfectly pitiable.
+
+[In 1848 Saint Beuve wrote the following almost prophetic words:
+"Nothing is swifter to decline in crises like the present (the
+Revolution of 1848) than civilization. In three weeks the result of many
+centuries are lost. Civilization, life, is a thing learned and invented.
+* * * * After years of tranquility men are too forgetful of this truth;
+they come to think that culture is innate, that it is the same thing as
+nature. But in truth barbarism is but a few paces off and begins again
+as soon as our hold is slackened."]--ED.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     A Rhine Journey. Frankfort. Mainz. Sail down the Rhine. Cologne.
+     Bonn. The Seven Mountains. Worms. Spire. Heidelberg. Tausig's
+     Death.
+
+
+ROLANDSECK AM RHEIN, _July 14, 1871_.
+
+You will be surprised to get this letter, dated from a little village on
+the Rhine, and I shall proceed to tell you how I came here, if the
+vilest of vile paper and pens will permit. I wrote a letter to L. just
+before I left Berlin, in which I informed her that I meant to go on a
+little trip with a party of friends, as Berlin in summer is malarious,
+and I felt the need of a change.
+
+Thursday a week ago we left Berlin and rode straight through to
+Frankfort. It was a long journey, and lasted from six o'clock in the
+morning until ten at night. I got up at four in the morning in a most
+halcyon frame of mind. In fact, I felt as if I were going to get
+married, owing to my putting on everything new from top to toe! The
+laundress had made such ravages upon my linen that I found myself
+suddenly obliged to replenish throughout, and consequently I arrayed
+myself with great satisfaction in new stockings, new under-clothes, new
+flannel, new skirts, new hat, new veil and new shoes to _boot_! I put on
+my black silk short suit, took my bag and shawl, and sallied to the
+station, where I found the others waiting for me.
+
+It was a lovely ride from Berlin to Frankfort, and having been shut up
+in a city for nearly two years, the country appeared perfectly charming
+and new to me, and every little smiling tuft of daisies had a special
+significance. I don't know whether you stopped at Frankfort on your
+travels. I fell dead in love with it, and liked it better than any part
+of Germany I have seen. It is such a quiet town and has such an air of
+elegance, and there are such lovely walks all about. Everything looks so
+clean, and the streets are so handsomely laid out, and then there are no
+_smells_, as there are in Berlin. The river flows all along the outside
+of the city, and the promenade along it is delightful. I went to see the
+house where my adorable Goethe was born, and afterward walked over the
+bridge over which he used to go to school. There was a gilded cock
+perched upon it, which he used to be very fond of as a child. We saw his
+statue, and then visited the Museum where was Danecker's great
+masterpiece, Ariadne sitting on the Panther. It is the most exquisite
+thing, and it is cut out of one solid block of Carrara marble. Through a
+pink curtain a rosy light is thrown on it from above, which gives the
+marble a delicious tinge. Strange that he should have risen to such a
+poetic conception, and never done anything afterwards of importance.
+
+We went into a great room where life-size pictures of all the Emperors
+of Germany were. Some of them are very handsome men, and the Latin
+mottoes underneath are very funny. One of them was: "If you don't know
+how to hold your tongue, you'll never know the right place to speak." I
+hope P. will keep L. well at her Latin and her history, and teach her
+something about architecture and mythology, for these one needs to know
+when one travels abroad. We only stayed one day in Frankfort, for there
+isn't a great deal to be seen there. The afternoon we spent in walking
+about and in sitting on logs by the river-side. Oh, what a sweet place
+one of those beautiful villas by the swiftly flowing river would be to
+live in!
+
+We left Frankfort at seven P. M., and rode to Mainz, which is only a
+ride of two hours, I believe. As we came over the railroad bridge into
+the town, we got our first glimpse of the Rhine, and it was a splendid
+sight. Our hotel was very near the river, and as our rooms were front
+rooms, and three stories up, we had a magnificent view of it. In the
+evening it was so fascinating to watch the lights on the water and the
+boats plying up and down, that it was long before we could make up our
+minds to leave the windows and go to bed. At Mainz we saw our first
+cathedral. It is six hundred years old, and had suffered six times by
+fire, but it was very fine, notwithstanding. We spent a long time
+studying it out. Afterwards we visited another church and ascended a
+tower which was built 30, B. C. It seemed almost as firm as the day it
+was finished. The view from it is magnificent, and the top of it is all
+overgrown with harebells, golden rod and grass. It was very picturesque.
+
+On Sunday evening we took the boat for Cologne which we reached at four
+o'clock in the afternoon. Oh, that sail down the Rhine was too
+delicious! The weather was perfect, and everything seemed to me like a
+fairy tale. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the Rhine, and it
+was too lovely to see those old castles in every degree of ruin, jutting
+out over the steep rocks, so high in the air, and then the vineyards
+sloping down the hillsides to the water's edge. The whole lay of the
+land was so exquisite. I didn't wonder that it is so celebrated, and
+that so much has been written about it. A funny old Englishman came and
+sat beside me, and we had a long conversation, pretty much as follows:
+
+Englishman.--"England is no doubt the finest country in the world. You
+know the people there are so enormous rich, they can do as they please."
+"Ah, indeed," said I, "have you travelled much in Germany?" "O yes! I've
+been all over Germany. I come up the Rhine every year," said he. "It's
+all very pretty when you've never seen it before, but it's nothing to me
+now." "Have you been to Berlin?" asked I. "O yes," said he. "Shouldn't
+want to live there. Your Prussians are so confounded arrogant. They
+think they're the greatest people in the world." "How did you like
+Dresden?" said I. "Stupid hole," said he. "Leipsic?" "Dull town."
+"Stuttgardt?" "Quite pretty." "Kissingen?" "'Orrible place, nothing but
+fanatics; every other day a Saint's day, and the shops shut up."
+"Wiesbaden?" "Very fine place." "Ems?" "Never been to Hems." "Mainz?"
+"Nasty hole." "Cologne?" "Stinking place." "Munich?" "Dreadful
+unhealthy. They have fevers there, typhus, etc. _I_ call 'em fevers."
+"How do you like the Rhine wines?" "Don't like them at all. It's very
+seldom a man gets to drink a decent glass of wine here. I don't drink
+'em at all. I like a glass of port." "Beer?" "O, the German beer isn't
+fit to drink. The English beer is the best in the world. German beer is
+'orrible bad stuff. Nothing but slops,--slops!" Here I burst out
+laughing, for his flattering descriptions were too much for me. He gave
+me a quizzical look and said, "Well, I'm glad I made you laugh. You're
+from America, aren't you?" "Yes," said I. "Very unhealthy place, I'm
+told." "Indeed? I never heard so," said I. "O yes, _very_!" said he.
+Then he went off, and after a long while he returned. "I've been
+asleep," said he, "I've slept two hours and a half, all through the fine
+scenery." "_What!_" said I, "don't you enjoy it?" "No, I don't enjoy it
+at all." Then he told me he lived in Rotterdam, and that I must come to
+Holland. He was very complaisant over the Dutch, whom he said were
+"nice, decent people, like the English. There's nothing of the German in
+them," said he, "they're quite another people--not so
+en-_thu_si-_as_tic,"--with a contemptuous air. We got out at Cologne,
+and he went on to his dear Rotterdam. So I saw him no more.
+
+Oh! isn't the Cologne Cathedral magnificent? It quite took my breath
+away as I entered it. The priests were just having vespers as we went
+in, and there was scarcely a person in the cathedral beside. It was so
+solemn and so touching to see them all by themselves intoning the
+prayers, their voices swelling and falling in that vast place. And when
+the superb organ struck up, and they began to sing a hymn, so wildly
+sweet, with an interlude most beautifully worked up at the end of each
+line by the organist--as we sat there under those great arches which
+soar up to such an immense height, I felt as if I were in Heaven.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    ANDERNACH, _July 16, 1871_.
+
+I believe I left off in my last with our arrival at Cologne, of which I
+saw very little, as I was extremely tired, and remained at the hotel.
+The Cathedral was, of course, the main point of interest, and that I saw
+thoroughly, as I went to it twice, and spent a number of hours each
+time. I was entirely carried away by its beauty and grandeur, as
+everybody must be. The descriptions I had heard and the photographs I
+had seen of it didn't prepare me at all. The _height_ of the great pile
+is one of the most astounding things, I think. The three and four story
+houses about it look like huts beside it. Beside the Cathedral I only
+saw the church where the eleven thousand virgins are buried, but that
+was more curious than beautiful.--I was much taken down by the shops in
+Cologne, which I think much finer than the Berlin ones, and saw no end
+of things in the windows I should like to have bought. The cravats alone
+quite turned my head!
+
+We only spent two days in Cologne, and then sailed for Bonn, which is
+but a very short distance. Here we were in a hotel directly upon the
+river, and I had a sweet little room quite to myself. The view up and
+down the river was superb, and we could see the Seven Mountains most
+beautifully. Bonn is the most quiet, sleepy little town you can imagine,
+and just the place to study, I should think. We saw the house where
+Beethoven was born, a little yellow, two-story house, and then we
+visited the Minster, which is nine hundred years old. We saw there a
+tomb devoted to the memory of the first architect of the Cologne
+Cathedral, with his statue lying upon it. He had a severely beautiful
+face, and I could very well imagine him capable of such a great
+conception. We had great difficulty in getting a dinner at Bonn, as,
+being a university town, the students gobble up everything. Finally, we
+found a little restaurant where they got us up one, consisting of steak
+and potatoes. After dinner I went to walk with Mr. S. and we ate
+cherries all the way, and finally sat down on a bench by the river's
+side, where we had an enchanting view. Then we went back to the hotel,
+and I went directly to bed. It was delicious to lie there and hear the
+little waves washing up outside my window. It is just the place for a
+honey-moon--so out of the world as it seems, and with none of the
+activity and bustle of other cities.
+
+At six o'clock the next morning we took the boat, and in about half an
+hour we landed at a little town on the side of the river opposite to
+Bonn, and began our pedestrian tour through the Seven Mountains, of
+which we ascended and descended four. They were all very steep and
+difficult to climb, and it reminded me of my trip to Mount Mansfield,
+years ago, only _then_ we had horses. We spent the night on one of
+them, the Löwenberg (Lion-mountain). This was a funny experience, as all
+we five ladies had to sleep in one room, and in one great bed of straw
+made up on the floor. The fleas bit us all night, so we did not sleep
+_too_ much. I mentioned the little fact to the servant next day, to
+which she replied, "Yes, when you aren't used to fleas and bed-bugs, it
+_is_ hard to sleep!" I agreed with her perfectly!--Our walk was
+enchanting in spite of the difficulty of the ascent, and of the fact
+that all of us had satchels slung over our shoulders, and a shawl and
+umbrella to carry, which made locomotion rather difficult. We were in
+the sylvan shades, following delicious footpaths scented with flowers,
+and with the birds singing and trilling as loud as they could over our
+heads.
+
+It was heavenly on the Löwenberg, for the view was glorious on every
+side, and it seemed as if we were on the highest peak in the universe. I
+sat for hours looking over the lovely country and following the
+meanderings of the Rhine. The atmospheric effects produced by the sunset
+were wonderful, and when it got to be nine o'clock we saw the lights
+twinkle up one by one from the distant villages below like little
+earth-stars--reflections of the heavenly ones above. The last mountain
+we ascended was the Drachenfels (Dragon-rock), and a fearful pull it
+was. The three others had been so easy, comparatively, that we none of
+us knew what we were in for. Soon found out, though! It was like trying
+to go up a wall, it was so steep. But when we got up we were rewarded,
+for the view was superb, and there was an interesting old Roman ruin up
+there. We wandered all about, and got an excellent dinner, and then
+came down late in the afternoon, took a row boat and rowed across the
+Rhine to Rolandseck--a fashionable watering place, and as charming as
+German towns have a way of being.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    GOTHA, _July 27, 1871_.
+
+Since I wrote you from Andernach I have been travelling steadily. The
+whole party except Mrs. V. N. and myself made a pedestrian tour along
+the Rhine from Rolandseck to Bingen, a distance of sixty miles. I
+started to walk, but when I had gone fifteen miles I gave out, and was
+glad to take the boat. Mrs. V. N. was an invalid and couldn't walk, so I
+took charge of her, and we would travel on together. When we got to the
+station where we had agreed to wait for the others, I would seat her
+somewhere with the bags of the party piled up around her, and then I
+would make a sortie, look at the hotels, and engage our rooms.
+
+We saw the Rhine from Cologne to Worms very thoroughly--for we kept
+stopping all along. It is truly magnificent, and nothing can be more
+interesting and picturesque than those old ruined castles which look as
+if they had grown there. Bingen is the sweetest place, and just the spot
+to spend a summer. We travelled from there to Worms, which is a
+delightful old city. We were there only an hour or two, but the walk
+from the boat to the cars was through the prettiest part of it, I should
+judge, and was very romantic, through winding walks overshadowed with
+trees. We saw that great Luther monument there, which is most imposing.
+The exterior of the Cathedral is splendid, and in quite another style
+of architecture from the Cologne Cathedral. From Worms we went to Spire,
+in order to see the Cathedral there, which is superb, and very
+celebrated. It was founded in 1030 by Conrad the Second, as a burial
+place for himself and his successors. It has no stained windows at all,
+even in the chancel, which surprised me, but the frescoes and the whole
+interior colouring are gorgeous in the extreme. It is in the Romanesque
+style of architecture, and is so entirely different from the Cologne
+Cathedral that it was very interesting, but there's nothing equal to the
+Gothic, after all.
+
+From Spire we went to Heidelberg. I was enchanted with Heidelberg. It is
+the most romantic and beautiful place I was ever in. The Castle is the
+prince of ruins. I had made up my mind all along that I was going to
+enjoy myself at Heidelberg, for my friend Dr. S. was studying there, and
+I knew I should have him to go about with. So I had been urging the
+party to go there from the first. As soon as we arrived, off I went to
+find him, which I soon accomplished. He was very glad to see me, and put
+himself at once at my disposal. You know the S.'s used to live at
+Heidelberg, among other places, so he knows it all by heart. After
+dinner we all went up to the Castle, of course. I was very sorry that I
+had never read Hyperion. We had to ascend a long hill before we got to
+it, but the weather was perfect, so we didn't mind. It is so high up
+that the view of the town and of the Neckar winding through it, with the
+wooded hills on the opposite shore, is panoramic.
+
+The Castle itself is an enormous ruin, and very richly ornamented. Ivy
+two hundred years old climbs over it in great luxuriance. We passed
+through a gateway over which stand two stone knights which are said to
+change places with each other at midnight, and there are all sorts of
+charming stories like that connected with the place. We saw a
+beautifully carved stone archway which was put up in a single night, in
+honour of somebody's birthday, and a monument with an inscription over
+it stood in one corner of the grounds, stating that here had stood some
+distinguished personage (I always forget all the names, unluckily, but
+"the _principle_ remains the same"), when the Castle was being besieged
+by the French. Two balls came from opposite directions, passed close by
+him, and struck against each other, miraculously leaving him unharmed!
+
+After we had walked around the outside of the Castle sufficiently we
+went inside. It took us a long time to go over it, it was so large. We
+saw the stone dungeon, which was called the "Never Empty," because
+somebody was always confined there--a dreadful hole, and it must have
+been in perfect darkness--and we saw the great Heidelberg cask which had
+a scaffolding on the top of it big enough to dance a quadrille on. But
+the finest of everything was the ascending of the tower. Just as we got
+to the top of it, and had begun to take in the magnificent scenery, an
+orchestra at a little distance below struck up Wagner's "Kaiser March."
+It was the one touch which was needed to make the _ensemble_ perfect. On
+one side the landscape lay far below us, with the silver river winding
+through it; on the other the hills rose behind the Castle to an immense
+height, and with the greatest boldness of outline. The tops were thickly
+wooded, and lower down the trees were beautifully grouped, and the
+velvety turf rolled and swelled to the foot of the Castle. The sun was
+just setting in a clear sky, and cast long shadows athwart the scene,
+and I thought I had never seen anything more striking. Then to hear
+Wagner's Kaiser March by a well-trained orchestra come soaring up, made
+a combination such as one gets perhaps not more than once in a
+life-time.
+
+The march is superb, so pompous and majestic, and with delicious
+melodies occasionally interwoven through it. Wagner's melodies are so
+heavily and intoxicatingly sweet, that they are almost narcotic. His
+music excites a set of emotions that no other music does, and he is a
+great original. It has the power of expressing longing and aspiration to
+a wonderful degree, and it always seems to me as if two impulses were
+continually trying to get the mastery. The one is the embodiment of all
+those vague yearnings of the soul to burst its prison house, and the
+other is the cradling of the body in the lap of pleasure. I always feel
+as if I should like to swoon away when I hear his compositions. Then his
+harmonies are so strangely seductive, so complicated, so "grossartig,"
+as the Germans say, and so peculiar! Oh, I have an immense admiration
+for him! He thinks that music is not the impersonation of an idea, but
+that it _is_ the idea.
+
+But to return to the Castle.--We stayed up in the tower for some time,
+and then we made the tour of the interior. Afterwards we walked and sat
+about until all the party thought it was time to go back to the hotel
+Dr. S. and I thought we would stay up there to supper. So we went where
+the orchestra was playing, which was in an enclosed space near the
+Castle. We took our seats at a little table in the open air, and ordered
+a delicious little supper, also
+
+    "A bottle of wine
+    To make us shine"
+
+in _conversation!_--and so glided by the most ideal evening, as far as
+surroundings go, that I ever spent.
+
+In our hotel at Heidelberg I kept hearing a man play splendidly in the
+room below us, and every time we passed his door it was open, and we
+could partly see the interior of a charming room with a grand piano in
+it, at which he was seated. A pretty woman was always lying back in the
+corner of the sofa listening to him, apparently. The presence of a large
+wax doll indicated that there must be a child about, and the perfume of
+flowers stole through the open doorway. My interest was at once excited
+in these people, and I said to myself as I heard this gentleman practice
+every day, "This must be some artist passing the summer here and getting
+up his winter programme." Accordingly, on Sunday afternoon when he was
+playing beautifully, I roused myself up and enquired of a servant who he
+was. "Nicolai Rubinstein, from St. Petersburg," replied she. He is the
+brother of the great Anton Rubinstein, and is nearly as fine a pianist.
+I know a scholar of Tausig's who had studied with him, and Tausig had a
+high opinion of him.
+
+Oh, isn't it _dreadful_? When we were at Bingen we saw the news of
+Tausig's DEATH in the paper! He died at Leipsic, on the 17th of July, of
+typhus fever, brought on by over-taxing his musical memory. It was a
+dreadful blow to me, as you may imagine, and when I think of his
+wonderful playing silenced forever, and comparatively in the beginning
+of his career, I cannot get reconciled to it. If you could have heard
+those matchlessly trained fingers of his, you would be able to
+sympathize with me on the subject. I had counted so on hearing him next
+winter, for he gave no concerts in Berlin last winter. He was only
+thirty-one years old!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Eisenach. Gotha. Erfurt. Andernach. Weimar. Tausig.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _August 15, 1871_.
+
+Well, here I am back in smelly old Berlin! I really hated to leave
+Heidelberg, it was such a paradisiacal spot, but we saw so much that was
+beautiful afterwards, that my impression of it has become a little
+dimmed. From Heidelberg we went to Eisenach, its rival in a different
+way, for here we went over the Wartburg--the Castle famous for having
+been the dwelling of the holy St. Elizabeth, and where Luther translated
+the Bible and spent ten months of his life disguised as a knight. I saw
+his room, a bare and comfortless hole, but with a splendid view from the
+windows. The Castle is in good repair, and is a noble pile. I suppose
+the Duke of Weimar spends some time there every summer, as it looks as
+if it were lived in. It is endlessly interesting. There is a lovely
+little chapel in it where Luther used to preach, with everything left in
+just as it was in his time--a little gem. The Wartburg is on a very high
+hill, and the views from it are superb. Among other things to be seen
+from it is the Venusberg, which is the mountain Wagner has introduced in
+his famous opera of Tannhäuser. He was so carried away by the Wartburg
+when he concealed himself near it, as he was being pursued by the
+government to be arrested as a revolutionary, twenty years ago, that he
+never rested until he had united the legends of St. Elizabeth and of the
+Venusberg in his opera. Liszt, also, wrote an oratorio on St. Elizabeth
+as _his_ tribute to the Wartburg.
+
+From Eisenach we went to Gotha, a lovely place, all shaded with trees,
+and surmounted by a very imposing castle, with two immense towers. It is
+an enormous edifice, and is surrounded by a magnificent park, through
+which goes the slowly winding river. I believe that Gotha belongs to the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg, brother of the Queen of England, or something. At
+all events, in the middle of this river is an island where the ducal
+family is buried, and it is so thickly planted with trees whose boughs
+hang over the water, that their graves are quite shrouded from the
+vulgar eye. Pretty idea! The river laps lazily against the grassy slope
+which covers the princely ones, and the wind rushing through the trees,
+sings their dirge.
+
+From Gotha we went to Erfurt, where we only spent one night, in order to
+see the Cathedral. Erfurt is an Undine of a place, full of running
+streams and bridges and mills roaring all about you. I saw one street
+with a brook rippling down the very middle of it at a most rattling
+pace, and at every little distance two or three stepping stones by which
+to cross it. Just think how fascinating for children! I longed to stay
+and have a good play there myself. The Erfurt Cathedral is much smaller
+than those of Spire and Cologne, but the exterior is wonderfully
+beautiful. The transept is a masterpiece, and has fifteen enormous
+windows of rich old stained glass going round it. The nave did not
+please me so well, because in addition to its not being very rich, the
+side aisles were of equal height with the main body of the Cathedral,
+and were not sufficiently marked off from it to prevent the roof's
+looking like a ceiling. I believe the side aisles were of equal height
+with the main aisle in the Cologne Cathedral, but the archways and
+pillars cut them off more, so that it had a different effect.--I am more
+interested in cathedrals than anything else, and should like to travel
+all over Europe and see all the different ones. There is a lovely old
+church at Andernach, Roman Catholic, as most of the churches on the
+Rhine are. I went there to church one Sunday morning, and stayed through
+the service. They had the most powerful church music I've ever heard.
+There was an excellent boy choir which sang in unison and led the
+congregation, _every person_ of which joined in. The organ was fine, as
+was also the organist, and the singing was so universal that the old
+church walls rang again. The priest preached an excellent sermon,
+too--the best I have heard in Germany.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _August 31, 1871_.
+
+Germany is a most lovely country, and perfectly delicious to travel
+through. I believe I have described all the places we went to excepting
+Weimar. Weimar is delightful, and so interesting, because Goethe and
+Schiller, Wieland and Herder lived there, and everything is connected
+with them, and especially with the first two. There are many fine
+statues in the little city, and a delicious great park along the river
+which was laid out under Goethe's superintendence.--One group of Goethe
+and Schiller standing together in front of the theatre is magnificent.
+One hardly knows which to admire the most, Goethe, with his courtly mein
+and commanding features, or Schiller, with his extreme ideality and his
+head a little thrown back as if to take in inspiration direct from the
+sky. It is a most striking conception.
+
+The palace of the Grand Duke of Weimar is the principal "show" of the
+place. It is filled with the richest works of art, and is beautifully
+frescoed in rooms devoted each to a particular author, and representing
+his most celebrated works. There is the Goethe room, and the Wieland
+room, etc. The Wieland room is the most charming thing. The frescoes on
+the walls are all illustrative of his "Oberon," which is his most
+celebrated work, and one picture represents what happened when Oberon
+blew his horn. You must know that when Oberon blows his horn everybody
+is obliged to dance. So in this picture he is represented blowing it in
+a convent, and all the fat friars and nuns are dancing away like mad.
+They look so serious, and as if they didn't want to do it at all, but
+their feet _will_ fly up in the air in spite of them. The nuns' slippers
+scarcely stick on, and it looks so absurd! I was as highly amused at it
+as the mischievous Oberon himself must have been, so delicately has the
+artist touched it off. There was another design representing a band of
+nymphs dancing in the sky, hand in hand in the twilight, and it was the
+most graceful thing!--Their delicate little bare feet with every pretty
+turn a foot could have, their clothes and hair streaming in the breeze,
+and every attitude so airy. It was _lovely_! The Goethe frescoes were by
+another painter, and not so fine, but I prefer pictures to frescoes.
+Only one suite of the ducal rooms was frescoed. The others had superb
+pictures by the old masters, many of them originals.
+
+The Duke is an artist himself, and designs a great many pretty things.
+For instance, he designed the large candelabra which stood on each side
+of one of the doorways,--Cupid peeping through a wreath of thistles and
+nettles. He was kneeling on one knee, and pushing them aside with each
+hand. It was all done in gilt metal and made a very dainty conceit,
+beside being a good illustration of the pains of love! I think the Duke
+probably designed some of the picture frames, for they were peculiarly
+rich and artistic; for instance, the frames of the original cartoons of
+Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper were entirely composed of the leaves and
+flowers of the calla lily. The leaves lapped one over the other, and
+here and there a lily was laid between. The flowers were done in a
+different coloured gilding from the leaves. They were _very_ beautiful.
+The pictures were not all hung together, so as to confuse your eye, but
+here a gem and there a gem--and O, I saw the most bewitching little
+statue there that ever I saw in my life! The subject was "Little Red
+Riding Hood," and it stood in the corner of one of the great salons. It
+was about two feet high, and represented the most fascinating little
+girl you can imagine, clothed in the wolf's skin, which hung down behind
+and had formed the little hood. The child herself was quite
+indescribable--the daintiest little creature, with the most captivating
+expression of innocence and roguishness. If she looked like that I
+should have followed the wolf's example and eaten her up! It was really
+a perfect little _pearl_ of a statue. I would give anything to possess
+it. In short, I wish the Duke of Weimar were my intimate friend, for he
+must be a man worth knowing. Now, if I could only play like Liszt!--I
+don't wonder Liszt spends so much of his time in Weimar. I am getting
+perfectly crazy to hear him, by the way, for everybody says there is
+nobody in the world like him, and that he is the only artist who
+combines _everything_. He does not play in public any more, but
+Weitzmann says that he is amiability itself, and that it would probably
+not be difficult for me to get an opportunity to hear him in private.
+
+In the palace I also saw the little boudoir of the Duchess. It was all
+panelled in white satin, and the furniture was of the richest white
+brocaded silk. The window frames were of malachite, and one looked out
+through the single great plate of glass on to the beautiful park, and
+the winding river spanned by a bridge which suggests immediately to your
+mind, "Walk over me into the Garden of Paradise, for I was made for your
+express benefit!" The park lies on each side of this little river Ilm,
+and Goethe's exquisite taste has given it more a look of nature than of
+art. It seems as if you were walking in a delicious meadow, the trees
+being sometimes grouped together, sometimes growing thickly along the
+water's edge. You go in and out of sunshine and shadow, and here and
+there are dusky little retreats, and, to borrow Goldsmith's elegant
+style,--"the winding walks assume a natural sylvage." Some distance up
+the river, on the side of a gentle hill, was a small house in the woods
+where Goethe used to live in summer. Here he slept sometimes, and
+farther up the hill was a summer house where he took his coffee after
+dinner. To the left of this summer house he had had made a long
+alley-way or vista of trees whose tops met overhead and formed a leafy
+ceiling. It was like a cloister, and here he could pace up and down and
+muse. It was a delightful idea. To the right of the summer house was a
+small garden, and beyond that was a path which wound through the wood
+down to the path below. In one of the rocks there Goethe had had a
+little poem cut. I was sorry afterward that I hadn't copied it, it was
+so pretty.--But it was such a charming place to read and study, and it
+seemed to give me a better impression of him than anything else.
+
+I saw a piano in the Duke's palace upon which Beethoven had played. It
+was a funny little instrument of about five octaves, but it was so
+wheezy with age that there wasn't much tone to be got out of it. After
+we had finished looking at the palace, we went over to see the ducal
+library. Here I saw a superb bust of Goethe as a young man. It was so
+handsome that it spurns description. He must have been a perfect Apollo.
+I also saw a likeness of him painted upon a cup by some great artist,
+for which he sat thirty-four times! The old librarian, who had known
+Goethe, said that it was _exactly_ like him, and the miniature painting
+was so wonderful that when you looked at it with a magnifying glass it
+was only finer and _more_ accurate instead of less so! There was also a
+most noble bust of the composer Glück. The face was all scarred with
+small-pox, so that the cast must have been moulded from his features
+after death, but I never saw such a living, animated, likeness in
+marble. It looked as if it were going to speak to you. There was a funny
+toy there, nearly three hundred years old. It was a drummer boy, with a
+little baby strapped on his back. The librarian wound him up, and then
+he beat his drum lustily, rolled his eyes from side to side, and wagged
+his head, while the baby on his back hopped up and down. Whenever little
+children see it, it scares them, and they begin to cry. It had on a red
+flannel coat, and hasn't had a new one since it was made.--"Nearly three
+hundred years old, and never had a new coat," is worse than when C. P.
+bought himself a trunk, and went round the house saying, "Twenty-seven
+years old, and been in twenty-three states of the Union, and _never_ had
+a new trunk before!"
+
+Goethe's house is not exhibited, which I think highly inexcusable in the
+Goethe family, but Schiller's is. So we saw that, and what a contrast it
+was to the ducal palace!--You go to a small yellow house on one of the
+principal streets, enter a little hall by a little door, go up two
+flights of a little stair-case, and in the very low-ceilinged third
+story was Schiller's home--"home" I say, and the _whole_ of it, so
+please take it in! The first room you enter is a sort of ante-room where
+photographs are now sold. The next room was the parlour, and of late
+years it has been comfortably furnished by the ladies of Weimar in the
+usual cheap German taste. The third room was Schiller's study, with an
+infinitesimal fourth room, or large closet, opening from it, which was
+his sleeping apartment. The study is precisely as he left it, and
+nothing could be more bald and bare. No carpet on the floor, the three
+windows slightly festooned at the top with a single breadth of Turkey
+red, his own portrait and a few wretched prints on the walls--in short,
+such a sordid habitation for such a soaring nature as seemed almost
+incredible! His writing table, with a globe, inkstand, and pens upon it,
+stands at one window, and his wife's tiny little piano with her guitar
+on top, is against the wall. There are two or three chairs, and a
+wash-stand with a minute washing apparatus. In one corner is the tiny
+unpainted wooden bedstead on which he died; a bed not meant to stretch
+out in, but to lie, as Germans do, half reclining, and so low, narrow,
+plain and mean that I never saw anything like it. In it and hanging on
+the wall over it are wreaths which leading German actresses have brought
+there as votive offerings to their great national dramatist, their white
+satin ribbons yellowing by time. At the foot of the stair-case as you go
+out, you see the little walled-up garden at the back of the house where
+the poet loved to sit.
+
+After getting through with the abodes of the living, we visited the
+ducal vault where Goethe and Schiller are buried. It is the crypt of a
+sort of temple built in the old secluded cemetery in Weimar, and in it
+all the coffins are laid in rows on supporters. Goethe and Schiller lie
+apart from the others, side by side, near the foot of the stair-case
+leading down into the crypt. Their coffins, especially Schiller's, are
+covered with wreaths and bouquets brought by strangers and laid there.
+Schiller's had on it a garland of silver leaves presented by the women
+of Hamburg, and another of leaves of green gauze or crape, on every one
+of which was worked in gold thread the name of one of his plays. A great
+actress had made it herself as her tribute to his genius. From all I
+observe, I should judge that the German people love Schiller much more
+than they do Goethe. The dukes and duchesses lie farther back in the
+vault in their red velvet coffins, quite unnoticed. So much better is
+genius than rank! Hummel is buried also in the cemetery, which is the
+most beautiful I ever saw--not stiff and "arranged" like ours, but so
+natural! with over-grown foot-paths, and with much fewer and simpler
+grave-stones and monuments, and many more vines and flowers and roses
+creeping over the graves. We went to Hummel's grave, and had I been
+Goethe and Schiller I should much rather have been buried out of doors
+like him, amid this sweet half-wild, half-gentle nature, than in that
+dismal vault.
+
+Speaking of Hummel reminds me of Tausig's death. Was it not terrible
+that he should have died so young! Such an enormous artist as he was! I
+cannot get reconciled to it at all, and he played only twice in Berlin
+last winter.
+
+He was a strange little soul--a perfect misanthrope. Nobody knew him
+intimately. He lived all the last part of his life in the strictest
+retirement, a prey to deep melancholy. He was taken ill at Leipsic,
+whither he had gone to meet Liszt. Until the ninth day they had hopes of
+his recovery, but in the night he had a relapse, and died the tenth day,
+very easily at the last. His remains were brought to Berlin and he was
+buried here. Everything was done to save him, and he had the most
+celebrated physicians, but it was useless. So my last hope of lessons
+from him again is at an end, you see! I never expect to hear such
+piano-playing again. It was as impossible for him to strike one false
+note as it is for other people to strike right ones. He was absolutely
+infallible. The papers all tell a story about his playing a piece one
+time before his friends, from the notes. The music fell upon the keys,
+but Tausig didn't allow himself to be at all disturbed, and went on
+playing through the paper, his fingers piercing it and grasping the
+proper chords, until some one rushed to his aid and set the notes up
+again. Oh, he was a wonder, and it is a tragic loss to Art that he is
+dead. He was such a _true_ artist, his standard was so immeasurably
+high, and he had such a proud contempt for anything approaching
+clap-trap, or what he called _Spectakel_. I have seen him execute the
+most gigantic difficulties without permitting himself a sign of effort
+beyond an almost imperceptible compression of one corner of his
+mouth.--And then his touch! Never shall I forget it!--that _rush_ of
+silver over the keys. However, he entirely overstrained himself, and his
+whole nervous system was completely shattered long before his illness.
+He said last winter that the very idea of playing in public was
+unbearable to him, and after he had announced in the papers that he
+would give four concerts, he recalled the announcement on the plea of
+ill health. Then he thought he would go to Italy and spend the winter.
+But when he got as far as Naples, he said to himself, "_Nein, hier
+bleibst du nicht_ (No, you won't stay here);" and back he came to
+Berlin. He doesn't seem to have known what he wanted, himself; his was
+an uneasy, tormented, capricious spirit, at enmity with the world.
+Perhaps his marriage had something to do with it. His wife was a
+beautiful artist, too, and they thought the world of each other, yet
+they couldn't live together. But Tausig's whole life was a mystery, and
+his reserve was so complete that nobody could pierce it. If I had only
+been at the point in music two years ago that I am now, I could have
+gone at once into his class. His scholars were most of them artists
+already, or had got to that point where they had pretty well mastered
+the technique. A number of them came out last winter, and the little
+Timanoff played duets with Rubinstein for two pianos, at St. Petersburg.
+
+Since my return I have gone into the first class in Kullak's
+conservatory, instead of taking private lessons of him. I think it will
+be of use to me to hear his best pupils play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     Dinner-Party and Reception at Mr. Bancroft's. Auction at Tausig's
+     House. A German Christmas. The Joachims.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _October 2, 1871_.
+
+This week I have been to a dinner-party at the Bancroft's. There were
+several eminent Germans there, and I was taken out by Bötticher, the
+Herr who has arranged all the casts in the Museum, and who knows
+everything about Art. He couldn't speak a word of English, so we
+_Germaned_ it. We talked about Sappho all through dinner, and he gave me
+several details about that young woman which I did not know before. As
+C. used to say, we had one of those dinners "such as you read about in
+the Arabian Nights," topping off with a glass of my favourite Tokay,
+which, I regret to say, I so prolonged the pleasure of drinking, that
+finally the signal was given to adjourn to the drawing-room, and I was
+obliged to leave my glass standing half full, to be swallowed by the
+waiter as soon as my back was turned. Sad, but true!
+
+On another evening, at a Bancroft reception, I talked with a Miss R.,
+who was charming. She is twenty-two or three, I should think, very
+pretty and extremely elegant, and with the most delicious way of
+speaking you can imagine. Such softness of manner and such a
+delightfully pitched voice, and then along with this perfect repose,
+such a vivid way of describing things! I was immensely taken with her,
+and was delighted to have her for a countrywoman. She gave me a
+wonderful account of the Island of Java. I had a lot of questions to ask
+her, for you remember how persistently I read that book by a naturalist
+(Wallace) who went to Java in search of the Bird of Paradise. Miss R. is
+so extremely intelligent, and yet so unassuming; and then this high-bred
+manner.--I did not have time to hear her talk half enough, and,
+unfortunately, her party went away the next day.
+
+The other day was an auction in poor little Tausig's house, and all his
+furniture was sold. It was very handsome, all of solid oak, beautifully
+carved. He had spent five thousand thalers on it. His wardrobe was sold,
+too, and I don't know how many pairs of his little boots and shoes were
+there, his patent leather concert boots among others. His little velvet
+coat that he used to wear went with the rest. I saw it lying on a chair.
+I came home quite ill, and was laid up two days. It was the fatigue, I
+suppose, and miserable reflections. I wanted to buy a picture, but they
+were all sold in a lot. He had excellent ones of all the great
+composers, down to Liszt and Wagner, hanging over his piano in the room
+where he always played. Kullak deplores Tausig's death very deeply. He
+had visited him in Leipsic two days before he was taken ill, and said no
+one would have dreamed that Tausig was going to die, he looked so well.
+Kullak said Tausig was one of the three or four great _special_
+pianists. "Who will interpret to us so again?" said he; and I echoed,
+sadly enough, "Who, indeed?"
+
+Kullak, by the way, is a wonderfully _finished_ teacher. He is a great
+friend of Liszt's, and Liszt has taught him a good many things. I doubt,
+however, how M. will fare with him, if she is only going to be here a
+year. My experience is that it takes fully a year to get started under a
+first class master. These great teachers won't take a pupil raw from
+America, still less trouble themselves with a scholar who cannot
+immediately comprehend. I have written her to-day a three-sheet letter
+in which I have set forth the disadvantages of Germany in a sufficiently
+forcible manner to prevent her feeling disappointed if she still insists
+upon the journey. I have come to the conclusion that I am no criterion
+as to other people's impressions. Unless people have an enthusiasm for
+art I don't see the least use in their coming abroad. If they cannot
+appreciate the _culture_ of Europe, they are much better off in America.
+There is no doubt whatever that as to the _comfort_ of every-day life,
+we are a long way ahead of every nation, unless perhaps the English,
+whom, however, I have not seen.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _December 25, 1871_.
+
+To-day is Christmas-day, and I have thought much of you all at home, and
+have wondered if you've been having an apathetic time as usual. I think
+we often spend Christmas in a most shocking fashion in America, and I
+mean to revolutionize all that when I get back. So long a time in
+Germany has taught me better. Here it is a season of universal joy, and
+_everybody_ enters into it. Last night we had a Christmas tree at the
+S.'s, as we always do. We went there at half past six, and it was the
+prettiest thing to see in every house, nearly, a tree just lighted, or
+in process of being so. As a separate family lives on each floor, often
+in one house would be three trees, one above the other, in the front
+rooms. The curtains are always drawn up, to give the passers-by the
+benefit of it. They don't make a fearful undertaking of having a
+Christmas tree here, as we do in America, and so they are attainable by
+everybody. The tree is small, to begin with, and nothing is put on it
+except the tapers and bonbons. It is fixed on a small stand in the
+centre of a large square table covered with a white cloth, and each
+person's presents are arranged in a separate pile around it. The tree is
+only lighted for the sake of beauty, and for the air of festivity it
+throws over the thing.--After a crisp walk in the moonlight (which I
+performed in the style of "Johnny-look-up-in-the-air," for I was engaged
+in staring into house-windows, so far as it was practicable), we sat
+down to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of cake. I had just begun my
+second cup, when, Presto! the parlour doors flew open, and there stood
+the little green tree, blossoming out into lights, and throwing its
+gleams over the well-laden table. There was a general scramble and a
+search for one's own pile, succeeded by deep silence and suspense while
+we opened the papers. Such a hand shaking and embracing and thanking as
+followed! concluding with the satisfactory conviction that we each had
+"just what we wanted." Germans do not despise the utilitarian in their
+Christmas gifts, as we do, but, between these and their birthday
+offerings, expect to be set up for the rest of the year in the
+necessaries of life as well as in its superfluities. Presents of
+stockings, under-clothes, dresses, handkerchiefs, soaps--nothing comes
+amiss. And every one _must_ give to every one else. That is LAW.
+
+I have just heard a young artist from Vienna who made a great impression
+on me. His name is Ignaz Brühl. He is quite exceptional, and has not
+only a brilliant technique, but also a peculiar and beautiful
+conception.--But the best concert I have heard this season was one given
+by Clara Schumann a week ago last Monday. She was assisted by Joachim
+and his wife, and _that_ galaxy is indeed unequalled. Frau Joachim sings
+deliciously. Not that her voice is so remarkable. You hear such voices
+all the time. But she manages it consummately, and sings German songs as
+no one but a German _could_ sing them. Indeed I never heard any woman
+approach her in unobtrusive yet perfect art. She does not take you by
+storm, and when I first came here I did not think much of her, but every
+time I hear her I am struck with how exquisite it is. Every word takes
+on a meaning, and on this account I think you have to understand the
+language before you can realize the beauty of it. One of her songs was
+Schumann's "Spring Song," with that rapid _agitato_ accompaniment, you
+know.--She came out and started off in it with a half breath and a
+tremor just like a bird fluttering up out of its nest, and then went up
+on a portamento with _such_ abandon!--like the bird soaring off in its
+flight. I never _shall_ forget that effect! Of course it carried you
+completely away.
+
+Beside singing so admirably she is a beauty--a sort of baby beauty--and
+when she comes out in a pale pink silk, contrasting with her dark hair
+and revealing her imperial neck and arms, she is ravishing. I've been
+told she wasn't anything remarkable when Joachim married her. No doubt
+dwelling with such a genius has developed her. They say that Joachim has
+had such a happy life that he wants to live forever! He certainly does
+overtop everything. On this occasion he played Beethoven's great
+Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano, with Clara Schumann, and I thought
+it the _most magnificent performance I ever heard_! I perfectly adore
+Joachim, and consider him the wonder of the age. It is simple ecstasy to
+listen to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Visit to Dresden. The Wiecks. Von Bülow. A Child Prodigy. Grantzow,
+     the Dancer.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _February 10, 1872_.
+
+A week ago last Monday I went to Dresden with J. L. to visit B. H. We
+got there at about five in the afternoon, and were met at the station by
+B.'s maid, who conducted us straightway to their house in Christian
+Strasse. B. and Mrs. H. received us with the greatest cordiality, and we
+had a splendid time. I came home only the day before yesterday, and J.
+is still there. The H.'s have a charming lodging, and Mrs. H. is a
+capital housekeeper. The _cuisine_ was excellent, and you can imagine
+how I enjoyed an American breakfast once more, after nothing but "rolls
+and coffee" for two years. B. did everything in her power to amuse us,
+and she is the soul of amiability. She kept inviting people to meet us,
+and had several tea-parties, and when we had no company she took us to
+the theatre or the opera. She invited Marie Wieck (the sister of Clara
+Schumann) to tea one night. I was very glad to meet her, for she is an
+exquisite artist herself, and plays in Clara Schumann's style, though
+her conception is not so remarkable. Her touch is perfect. At B.'s
+request she tried to play for us, but the action of B.'s piano did not
+suit her, and she presently got up, saying that she could do nothing on
+that instrument, but that if we would come to _her_, she would play for
+us with pleasure.
+
+I was in high glee at that proposal, for I was very anxious to see the
+famous Wieck, the trainer of so many generations of musicians. Fräulein
+Wieck appointed Saturday evening, and we accordingly went. B. had
+instructed us how to act, for the old man is quite a character, and has
+to be dealt with after his own fashion. She said we must walk in (having
+first laid off our things) as if we had been members of the family all
+our lives, and say, "Good-evening, Papa Wieck,"--(everybody calls him
+Papa). Then we were to seat ourselves, and if we had some knitting or
+sewing with us it would be well. At any rate we must have the apparent
+intention of spending several hours, for nothing provokes him so as to
+have people come in simply to call. "What!" he will say, "do you expect
+to know a celebrated man like me in half an hour?" then (very
+sarcastically), "perhaps you want my autograph!" He hates to give his
+autograph.
+
+Well, we went through the prescribed programme. We were ushered into a
+large room, much longer than it was broad. At either end stood a grand
+piano. Otherwise the room was furnished with the greatest simplicity. My
+impression is that the floor was a plain yellow painted one, with a rug
+or two here and there. A few portraits and bas-reliefs hung upon the
+walls. The pianos were of course fine. Frau Wieck and "Papa" received us
+graciously. We began by taking tea, but soon the old man became
+impatient, and said, "Come! the ladies wish to perform (_vortragen_)
+something before me, and if we don't begin we shan't accomplish
+anything." He _lives_ entirely in music, and has a class of girls whom
+he instructs every evening for nothing. Five of these young girls were
+there. He is very deaf, but strange to say, he is as sensitive as ever
+to every musical sound, and the same is the case with Clara Schumann.
+Fräulein Wieck then opened the ball. She is about forty, I should think,
+and a stout, phlegmatic-looking woman. However, she played superbly, and
+her touch is one of the most delicious possible. After hearing her, one
+is not surprised that the Wiecks think nobody can teach touch but
+themselves. She began with a nocturne by Chopin, in F major. I forgot to
+say that the old Herr sits in his chair with the air of being on a
+throne, and announces beforehand each piece that is to be played,
+following it with some comment: _e. g._, "This nocturne I allowed my
+daughter Clara to play in Berlin forty years ago, and afterward the
+principal newspaper in criticising her performance, remarked: 'This
+young girl seems to have much talent; it is only a pity that she is in
+the hands of a father whose head seems stuck full of queer new-fangled
+notions,'--so new was Chopin to the public at that time." That is the
+way he goes on.
+
+After Fräulein Wieck had finished the nocturne, I asked for something by
+Bach, which I'm told she plays remarkably. She said that at the moment
+she had nothing in practice by Bach, but she would play me a _gigue_ by
+a composer of Bach's time,--Haesler, I think she said, but cannot
+remember, as it was a name entirely unknown to me. It was very
+brilliant, and she executed it beautifully. Afterward she played the
+last movement of Beethoven's Sonata in E flat major, but I wasn't
+particularly struck with her conception of that. Then we had a pause,
+and she urged me to play. I refused, for as I had been in Dresden a week
+and had not practiced, I did not wish to sit down and not do myself
+justice. My hand is so stiff, that as Tausig said of himself (though of
+him I can hardly believe it), "When I haven't practiced for fourteen
+days I can't do anything." The old Herr then said, "Now we'll have
+something else;" and got up and went to the piano, and called the young
+girls. He made three of them sing, one after the other, and they sang
+very charmingly indeed. One of them he made improvise a _cadenza_, and a
+second sang the alto to it without accompaniment. He was very proud of
+that. He exercises his pupils in all sorts of ways, trains them to sing
+any given tone, and "to skip up and down the ladder," as they call the
+scale.
+
+After the master had finished with the singing, Fräulein Wieck played
+three more pieces, one of which was an exquisite arrangement by Liszt of
+that song by Schumann, "_Du meine Seele_." She ended with a _gavotte_ by
+Glück, or as Papa Wieck would say, "This is a gavotte from one of
+Glück's operas, arranged by Brahms for the piano. To the superficial
+observer the second movement will appear very easy, but in _my_ opinion
+it is a very hard task to hit it exactly." I happened to know just how
+the thing ought to be played, for I had heard it three times from Clara
+Schumann herself. Fräulein Wieck didn't please me at all in it, for she
+took the second movement twice as quickly as the first. "Your sister
+plays the second movement much slower," said I. "_So?_" said she, "I've
+never heard it from her." She then asked, "So slow?" playing it slower.
+"Still slower?" said she, beginning a third time, at my continual
+disapproval. "_Streng im Tempo_ (in strict time)", said I, nodding my
+head oracularly. "_Väterchen_." called she to the old Herr, "Miss Fay
+says that Clara plays the second movement _so_ slow," showing him. I
+don't know whether this correction made an impression, but he was then
+_determined_ that I should play, and on my continued refusal he finally
+said that he found it very strange that a young lady who had studied
+more than two years in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories shouldn't
+have _one_ piece that she could play before people. This little fling
+provoked me, so up I jumped, and saying to myself, "_Kopf in die Höhe,
+Brust heraus,--vorwärts!_" (one of the military orders here), I marched
+to the piano and played the fugue at the end of Beethoven's A flat
+Sonata, Op. 110. They all sat round the room as still as so many statues
+while I played, and you cannot imagine how dreadfully nervous I was. I
+thought fifty times I would have to stop, for, like all fugues, it is
+such a piece that if you once get out you never can get in again, and
+Bülow himself got mixed up on the last part of it the other night in his
+concert. But I got well through, notwithstanding, and the old master was
+good enough to commend me warmly. He told me I must have studied a
+great deal, and asked me if I hadn't played a great many _Etuden_. I
+informed him in polite German "He'd better believe I had!"
+
+I should like to study with the Wiecks in my vacation next summer if
+they would take me. Perhaps I may. They are considered somewhat
+old-fashioned in their style, and I shouldn't wish to exchange Kullak
+for them, but they are _such_ veterans that one could not help getting
+many valuable ideas from them. Papa Wieck used to be Bülow's master
+before he went to Liszt.
+
+Did I tell you how carried away with Bülow I was? He is magnificent, and
+just between Rubinstein and Tausig. I am going to hear him again on
+Saturday, and then I'll write you my full opinion about him. He is
+famous for his playing of Beethoven, and I wish you could have heard the
+Moonlight Sonata from him. One thing he does which is entirely peculiar
+to himself. He runs all the movements of a sonata together, instead of
+pausing between. It pleased me very much, as it gives a _unity_ of
+effect, and seems to make each movement beget the succeeding one.
+
+
+BERLIN, _May 30, 1872_.
+
+I wish L. were here studying piano with Kullak's son. He has one little
+fairy of a scholar ten years old. Her name is Adele aus der Ohe--(isn't
+that an old knightly name?)--and it is the most astonishing thing to
+hear that child play! I heard her play a concerto of Beethoven's the
+other day with orchestral accompaniment and a great cadenza by
+Moscheles, absolutely _perfectly_. She never missed a note the whole way
+through. I suppose she will become, like Mehlig, a great artist. But
+perhaps, like her, she won't have a great conception, but will do
+everything mechanically. One never can tell how these child-prodigies
+will turn out.--Please don't form any exalted ideas of _my_ playing! I'm
+a pretty stupid girl, and go forward slowly. I never expect to play as
+Miss Mehlig does. If I can ever get up to Topp, I shall be satisfied.
+You wouldn't believe how long it takes to get to be a virtuoso unless
+you tried it. Mehlig, you know, studied steadily for ten years, under
+the _best_ of teaching all the time, and she had probably more talent to
+start with than I have. Miss V. and Mr. G. have been here _five_ years
+studying steadily, and they are no farther than I am now. Not so far. It
+makes all the difference in the world what kind of hand and wrist a
+person has. Mine, you know, were pretty stiff, and then it is a great
+disadvantage to begin studying after one is grown up. One ought to be
+learning while the hand is forming.
+
+I am just now learning that A minor concerto of Schumann's that Topp
+played at the Handel and Haydn Festival in Boston. The cadenza is tough,
+I can tell you. That is the worst of these concertos. There is always a
+grand cadenza where you must play all alone and "make a splurge." I
+don't know how it feels to be left all at once without any support from
+the orchestra. It is bad enough when Kullak lies back in his chair and
+ceases accompanying me. He plays with me on two pianos, and I get so
+excited that my wrists tremble. He is a magnificent pianist, and his
+technique is perfect. There's nothing he can't do. Like all artists, he
+is as capricious and exasperating as he can be, and, as the Germans say,
+he is "_ein Mal im Himmel und das nächste Mal im Keller_ (one time in
+heaven and the next time in the cellar)!" He has a deep rooted prejudice
+against Americans, and never loses an opportunity to make a mean remark
+about them, and though he has some remarkably gifted ones among his
+scholars, he always insists upon it that the Americans have no real
+talent. As far as I know anything about his conservatorium just now, his
+_most_ talented scholars are Americans. There is a young fellow named
+Sherwood, who is only seventeen years old, and he not only plays
+splendidly but composes beautifully, also. In my own class Miss B. and I
+are far ahead of all the others. Kullak will praise us very
+enthusiastically, and then when some one plays particularly badly in the
+class he will say to them, "Why, Fräulein, you play exactly as if you
+came from America." It makes Miss B. and me so indignant that we don't
+know what to do. Of course we can't say anything, for he addresses this
+remark in a lofty way to the whole class. Miss V. couldn't bear Kullak,
+and the other day, when she and Mr. G. were taking leave of him to go to
+America, she let him see it. He said to her, "And when shall I see you
+again?" "_Never_," exclaimed she! We have only one way of revenging
+ourselves, and that is when he gives us the choice of taking one of his
+compositions or a piece by some one else, always to take the other
+person's. For instance, he said to me, "Fräulein, you can take
+Schumann's concerto or _my_ concerto." I immediately got Schumann's.
+
+The other night I went to see a great ballet-dancer. Her name is
+Fräulein Grantzow, and she is the court dancer at St. Petersburg, where
+I've heard that the ballet surpasses everything of the kind in the
+world. This danseuse is a wonder, and they say there has never been such
+dancing since the days of Fanny Ellsler. She has the figure of a Venus,
+and the most expressive face imaginable. When she dances, it is not only
+dancing, but a complete representation of character, for she plays a
+rôle by her motions just the same as if she were an actress. I have seen
+many a ballet, but I never conceived what an art dancing is before. I
+saw her in "Esmeralda," a ballet which is arranged from Victor Hugo's
+romance and modified for the stage. Fräulein Grantzow took the part of
+Esmeralda. In the first act a man is condemned to death, but is pardoned
+on condition that one of the women present will promise to marry him.
+The women, represented by about fifty ballet dancers, come up one after
+the other, contemplate the poor victim, pirouette round him, and reject
+him in turn with a gesture of contempt. At last Esmeralda (a gypsy)
+comes dancing along, asks what is the matter, and on being told, has
+compassion on the poor wretch, and promises to marry him in order to
+save him from his fate.
+
+When the time came for Grantzow to appear, the crowd of dancers
+suddenly divided, and she bounded out from the back of the stage. _Such_
+an apparition as she was! In the first place her toilettes surpassed
+everything, and she appeared in a fresh dress in every act. In this
+first one she had on a most dazzling shade of green gauze for her skirt.
+From her waist fell a golden net-work, like a cestus, with little golden
+tassels all round. She wore a little scarlet satin jacket all fringed
+with gold coins, and a broad golden belt, pointed in front, clasped her
+waist. On her head was a tiny scarlet cap, also fringed with coins, and
+she had some golden bangles round her neck. In her hand was a tambourine
+from which depended four knots of coloured ribbons with long ends.
+Shaking her tambourine high in the air, out she sprang like a panther,
+made one magnificent circuit all round the stage, and after executing an
+immensely difficult _pas_ with perfect ease, she suddenly posed to the
+audience in the most ravishing and impossible attitude and with the most
+captivating grace conceivable. Anything like her _élan_, her _aplomb_, I
+never saw. Such a daring creature! Well, I cannot tell you all the
+things she did. She is a perfect Terpsichorean genius. All through the
+first act she danced very slowly, merely to show her wonderful grace,
+and the beauty and originality of her positions. She had a way of
+folding her arms over her breast and dancing with a dreamy step that was
+quite different from anybody else, and it produced an entrancing effect.
+Through the second and third acts she made a regular crescendo, just to
+display her technique and show what she could do. All the other dancers
+seemed like blocks of wood in comparison with her.--Fräulein Grantzow is
+said to be between thirty-five and thirty-eight years old. As the papers
+said, her art shows the perfection that only maturity can give. The men
+are all crazy over her, as you may imagine, and she was showered with
+bouquets as large as the top of a barrel. The play of her features was
+as extraordinary as the play of her muscles. Her whole being seemed to
+be the soul of motion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     A Rising Organist. Kullak. Von Bülow's Playing. A Princely Funeral.
+     Wilhelmj's Concert. A Court Beauty.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _July 1, 1872_.
+
+Since I have been here X. has gradually developed into a great organ
+player, and I fancy he is now one of the first organ virtuosi in the
+world. His musical activity is immense, and I don't doubt he will be one
+of the great musical authorities here by the time he is a few years
+older. He is a good-hearted little demon, the incarnation of German dirt
+and good humour, and he pretends to be desperately devoted to me. Last
+Sunday he was at M.'s and went home with us afterward. Generally I go in
+front with A. or Herr J. and let X. give his arm to M., but this time I
+accorded him the honour of taking it myself. He is about a foot shorter
+than I am, but he trotted along by my side in a state of high
+satisfaction, and asked me what he should play at this concert. I told
+him he might play the G Minor Prelude and Fugue, as I had just taken it,
+"_but_," said I, "mind you play it well, for I shall study it very hard
+during the next fortnight, and I shall know if you strike one false
+note. I'll allow you six faults, but if you make one more I'll beat
+you." This amused him highly, but he said, "It is a very complicated
+fugue, and it isn't so easy to play it perfectly, with all the pedal
+passages. What will you do for me if I come off without making _one_
+fault?" I told him there was plenty of time to think about that, and I
+didn't believe he could. I have no doubt that he _will_ play it
+magnificently, but I love to plague him. I wish that his department were
+secular rather than church music, for if he were only a conductor of an
+orchestra, or something of that sort, he could give me many a lift. He
+doesn't dare play the piano any more since I played to him a few times.
+He used nearly to kill me with his extemporizations, for he has no
+memory, and so he always had to extemporize. I generally went off into a
+secret convulsion of laughter when he went bang! bang! Donner and
+Blitz!--splaying all over the key-board. It was the funniest thing I
+ever heard, and when I heard him burst forth in such grand style on the
+organ, I was perfectly amazed, and couldn't reconcile it with his piano
+playing at all. He is a great reader, of course, and can transpose at
+sight, and all that sort of thing. I've known him to play accompaniments
+at sight in a great concert in the Dom and transpose them at the same
+time!
+
+July 6.--You ask me why I gave up going to the Wiecks in Dresden this
+summer.--Because they make everybody begin at the very beginning of
+their system and go through it before they give them a piece, and at my
+stage of progress that would be losing time. They think nobody can teach
+touch but themselves, but Kullak is a much greater musician, and I
+should not be willing to exchange him for Fräulein Wieck, who does not
+begin to equal him in reputation. Much as Kullak enrages me, I have to
+admit that he is a great master, and that he is thoroughly capable of
+developing artistic talent to the utmost. He makes Miss B. so provoked
+that she had very strong thoughts of going to Stuttgardt. The Stuttgardt
+conservatorium is so crowded that it is very difficult to get admission.
+Lebert (Mehlig's master,) sent word on her writing to enquire, that he
+would only take her on condition that she brought him a letter from
+Kullak authorizing her leaving him, as Kullak was a personal friend of
+his own, and so great an artist, that only the most important reasons
+could justify her giving up his instructions! Of course that put the
+stopper on any such movement.
+
+I've always forgotten to describe Bülow's playing to you, and it is now
+so long since I heard him that my impressions of it are not so vivid. He
+has the most forcible style I ever heard, and phrases wonderfully. It is
+like looking through a stereoscope to hear him. All the points of a
+piece seem to start out vividly before you. He makes me think of
+Gottschalk a little, for he is full of his airs. His expression is proud
+and supercilious to the last degree, and he looks all round at his
+audience when he is playing. He always has two grand pianos on the
+stage, one facing one way, and one the other, and he plays alternately
+on both. His face seems to say to his audience, "You're all cats and
+dogs, and I don't care what you think of my playing." Sometimes a look
+of infinite humour comes over it, when he is playing a rondo or anything
+gay. It is very funny. He has remarkable magnetic power, and you feel
+that you are under the sway of a tremendous will. Many persons find
+fault with his playing, because they say it is pure intellect (_der
+reine Verstand_) but I think he has too much passion to be called purely
+intellectual. Still, it is always passion controlled. Beethoven has been
+the grand study of his life, and he plays his sonatas as no one else
+does.
+
+If he goes to America next winter, you _must_ hear him thoroughly,
+_coûte que coûte_. So I advise you to be saving up your pennies, and be
+sure to get a place near the piano so that you can see his face, for it
+is a study. I always sit in the second or third row here.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _October 27, 1872_.
+
+This week has been quite an eventful one. It began on Monday with the
+funeral of Prince Albrecht, the youngest brother of the Emperor, and it
+was a very imposing spectacle. I was in hopes that Mr. B. would send me
+a card of admission to the Dom, where the services were to be held, but
+as he didn't, I was obliged to content myself with a sight of the
+procession and general arrangement outside. I took my stand on a wagon
+with H., and we got an excellent view. There was a roadway built of wood
+from the royal Castle to the Dom, carpeted with black, over which the
+procession was to pass. We waited about an hour before it came along,
+but we were pretty well amused by the gorgeous equipages and liveries of
+the different diplomatic corps which dashed past.
+
+We were on the opposite side of the canal which separated us from the
+square in front of the Dom. On the right of the Dom is the Castle, and
+the Museum is on the left. All this square was surrounded by military,
+for as Prince Albrecht was a Field-Marshal, the funeral had a military
+character. They were beautifully arranged, the cavalry on one side and
+the infantry on the other, and the different uniforms were contrasted
+with each other so as to make the best effects in colour. Both horses
+and men stood as if they were carved out of marble, with the greatest
+precision of position. A little before eleven the royal carriages rolled
+past from the palace to the Castle, with their occupants. Presently the
+bells began to toll, and exactly at eleven the procession started. The
+Gardes du Corps, which is the Crown Prince's regiment, preceded the
+coffin, dressed in white and silver uniforms, with glittering brass
+helmets surmounted by silver eagles. The coffin itself was borne on a
+catafalque, and drawn by eight horses covered with black velvet
+trappings. It was yellow, and was surmounted by a crown of gold. On it
+was laid the Prince's sword, helmet, etc., and some flowers. I was too
+far away to distinguish the personages that followed. Of course the
+Emperor was nearest, and all were on foot. Behind the coffin the
+Prince's favorite horse was led, saddled and bridled. All the servants
+of his household walked together in silver liveries and with large
+triangular hats with long bands of crape hanging down behind. The band
+played a chorale, "Jesus, my Refuge," and the bells kept tolling all the
+while. At the door of the Dom, the procession was received by the
+clergy officiating. The coffin was so heavy that it was rolled down a
+platform of boards put up for the purpose. Then it was lifted by sixteen
+bearers, the glittering cortége closed round it, and they all swept it
+at the open portal.
+
+We waited until the end of the service, as it was a short one, in order
+to hear the eight rounds of firing by the artillery. It was interesting
+to see how exactly they all fired the instant the signal was given.
+First the musketry on one side, and then the musketry on the other, in
+answer to it. The officers galloped and curveted about on their fiery
+steeds, and finally, the cannon went boom--boom. The sharp crack of the
+rifles made you start, but the sullen roar of the cannon made you
+shudder. It gave you some idea of a battle.
+
+Tuesday night I went to a concert given by a new star in the musical
+world, a young violinist named Wilhelmj. He is only twenty-six years
+old, and is already said to be one of the greatest virtuosi living,
+perhaps _the_ greatest of the romantic school, for Joachim belongs to
+the severe classic. All the artists and critics and many of the
+aristocracy turned out to hear him. It was his first appearance in
+Berlin, and as I looked round the audience and picked out one great
+musician after another, I fairly trembled for him. Joachim and de Ahna
+were both present, among others, and my adorable Baroness von S. swept
+in late, looking more exquisite than ever in black lace over black silk,
+with jet ornaments, and her lovely hair curled and done up high on her
+aristocratic little head. She was all in mourning for the Prince, even
+to a black lace fan with which she occasionally shaded her eyes, so that
+her peach-bloomy cheek was just to be discerned through it. She is a
+charming pianist herself, I've heard, and is a great patroness of music
+and musicians, especially of the "music of the future," and its
+creators. I see her at all the concerts. When her face is in perfect
+repose she has the most charming expression and a sort of celestial look
+in her deep-set blue eyes. She is what the French call _spirituelle_,
+and the Germans _geistreich_, but we've no word in our language that
+just describes her.
+
+Well, as I was saying, my head got quite dizzy with thinking what a
+trial it was to play before such an audience, but Wilhelmj seemed to
+differ from me, for he came confidently down the steps with the
+dignified self-poise of an artist who is master of his instrument, and
+who knows what he can do. He is extremely handsome, with regular
+features, massive overhanging forehead, and with an expression of power
+and self-containment. He looked a perfect picture as he stood there so
+quietly and played. He hadn't gone far before he made a brilliant
+cadenza that took down the house, and there was a general burst of
+applause. His _tone_ (which is the grand thing in violin-playing) was
+magnificent, and his technique masterly. He didn't play with that
+tenderness of feeling and wonderful variety of expression that Joachim
+does, but it was as if he didn't care to affect people in that way. It
+made me think of Tausig on the piano. He played with the greatest
+intensity and _aplomb_, and the strings seemed actually to seethe.
+People were taken by storm. The second piece was a concerto by Raff.
+Wilhelmj was in the midst of the Andante, and was sawing our hearts with
+every saw of his bow, when suddenly a string snapped under the strain of
+his passionate fingers. He instantly ceased playing, and retired up the
+steps to the back of the stage to put on another string. Unfortunately
+he had not brought along an extra one in his pocket, and had to borrow
+one from one of the orchestra. Weitzmann, who in his youth was himself
+an eminent concert violinist, was amazed at Wilhelmj's temerity. "What
+_rashness_," exclaimed he, "and the G string, too!" (one of the most
+important). After a pause Wilhelmj came down and began again, but the
+string was so out of tune that he retired a second time. He must have
+been furious inwardly, one would think, and at his _Berlin_ début, too!
+but he came down the third time with the utmost imperturbability, and
+got through the concerto. The whole effect of the concert was spoiled,
+though, and he had also to change the solos he had intended playing, so
+as to avoid the G string as much as possible. Instead of the lovely
+Chopin Nocturne in D flat (his own arrangement), he played an Aria by
+Bach. He did it so wonderfully that I was really startled.--I never
+shall forget the _nuances_ he put into his trill. But at his second
+concert, where he _did_ give the Nocturne, it was evident that the
+romantic is his great forte, and on a first appearance, and before his
+large and critical audience, he should have been heard in that
+_genre_.[D]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     The Boston Fire. Aggravations of Music Study. Kullak. Sherwood.
+     Hoch Schule. A Brilliant American. German Dancing.
+
+
+BERLIN, _November 24, 1872_.
+
+All the papers over here have been ringing with the Boston fire, the
+horse pestilence, shipwrecks, explosions, etc., until I feel as if all
+America were going to the bad. What an awful calamity that fire is! I
+can't take it in at all. All the Germans are wondering what our fire
+companies are made of that such conflagrations _can_ take place. They
+say it would be an impossibility _here_, where the organization is so
+perfect. The men are trained to the work for years, and are on the spot
+in a twinkling, knowing just what to do. They are as fully convinced of
+their super-excellence in the Fire Department as in every other, and
+nothing can make them believe that if two or three of their little
+fire-engines had been there, and worked by _their_ firemen, the Chicago
+and Boston fires could not have been put out! You know their machines
+are pumped by _hand_, too, instead of by steam, as ours are, which makes
+the assumption all the more ludicrous. It reminds me of a German party I
+was at once, where our war was the subject of conversation. "Oh, you
+don't know anything about fighting over there," said one gentleman,
+nodding at me patronizingly across the table. "If you had had two or
+three of _our_ regiments, with one of _our_ generals, your war would
+have been finished up in no time!"
+
+I've had _such_ a vexation to-day that I'm really quite beside myself! I
+was to play the first movement of my Rubinstein Concerto in the
+conservatory with the orchestra. I've been straining every nerve over it
+for several weeks, practicing incessantly, and had learned it perfectly.
+When I played it in the class the other day it went beautifully, and I
+think even Kullak was satisfied. Well, of course I was anticipating
+playing it with the orchestra before an audience, with much pleasure,
+and hoped I was going to distinguish myself. Music-director Wuerst and
+Franz Kullak always take charge of these orchestra lessons, sometimes
+one directing and sometimes the other. I got up early this morning, and
+practiced an hour and a half before I went to the conservatory, and I
+was there the first of all who were to play concertos. I spoke to Wuerst
+and told him what I was to play, and he said "All right." Wouldn't you
+have thought now, that he would have let me play first? Not a bit of it.
+He first heard the orchestra play a stupid symphony of Haydn's, which
+they might just as well have left out. Then he began screaming out to
+know if Herr Moszkowski was there? Herr Moszkowski, however, was _not_
+there, and I began to breathe freer, for he is a finished artist, and
+has been studying with Kullak for years, and plays in concerts. Of
+course if he had played first, it would have been doubly hard for me to
+muster up my courage, and you would have thought that Wuerst would have
+taken that into consideration. As Moszkowski was absent, I thought I
+certainly should be called up next, but another girl received the
+preference. She played extremely well, and Wuerst paid her his
+compliments, and then took his departure, leaving Franz Kullak to
+conduct. Then one of my class played Beethoven's G major concerto most
+wretchedly. Poor creature, she was nervous and frightened, and couldn't
+do herself any sort of justice. At last it was over, and at last Franz
+Kullak sung out, "We will now have Rubinstein's concerto in D minor."
+
+I got up, went to the piano, wiped off the keys, which were completely
+_wet_ from the nervous fingers of those who had preceded me, and was
+just going to sit down, when a young fellow approached from the other
+side with the same intention. "O, Fräulein Fay, you have the same
+concerto? Very well, you can play it the _next_ time. To-day Herr
+So-and-So plays it!" Now, did you ever know anything so provoking? I
+hoped at least that the young fellow would play it well, and that I
+should learn something, but he perfectly _murdered_ it, and there I had
+to sit through it all, with the piece tingling at my fingers ends--and
+now there's no knowing _when_ I shall play it, as the orchestra lessons
+are so seldom and so uncertain. I hope there will be one two weeks from
+to-day, but even so I probably shan't do half so well as I should have
+done to-day, for the freshness will be all out of the piece, and I've
+practiced it so much _now_ that I hate the sound of it, and can't bear
+to waste any more time over it. Such is life! I thought this time that I
+had taken every precaution to ensure success, for I had risen early
+every day, and eaten no end of the "bread of carefulness," and the
+result is--nothing at all! Not even a failure. It is the more to be
+regretted as to-day was the first Sunday of the month, and I wanted to
+go to church, especially as the bad weather kept me at home for two
+Sundays. However, I'm determined I _will_ play the concerto _yet_, if I
+stake "_Kopf und Kragen_ (head and collar)" on it, as the Germans
+say.--But oh, the difficulty of doing _anything_ at all in this world!
+
+December 18, 1872.--_At last_ I played my Rubinstein concerto a week ago
+Sunday with the orchestra, and had the pleasure of being told by
+Scharwenka that I had had a brilliant success. Franz Kullak said that my
+octave passages were superbly played, and Moszkowski (who, to my
+surprise, was playing first violin) applauded. So I was complimented by
+the three of whom I stood most in awe. Scharwenka and Moszkowski are
+both finished artists and exquisite composers, and play a great deal in
+concerts this winter. Scharwenka is very handsome. He is a Pole, and is
+very proud of his nationality. And, indeed, there _is_ something
+interesting and romantic about being a Pole. The very name conjures up
+thoughts of revolutions, conspiracies, bloody executions, masked balls,
+and, of _course_, grace, wit and beauty! Scharwenka certainly sustains
+the traditions of his race as far as the latter qualification is
+concerned. I never talked with him, as I have but a bowing acquaintance
+with him, so I don't know what sort of a _mind_ he has, but I find
+myself looking at him and saying to myself with a certain degree of
+satisfaction, "He is a Pole." Why I should have this feeling I know not,
+but I seem to be proud of knowing Poles!--Scharwenka has a clear olive
+complexion, oval face, hazel eyes (I _think_) and a mass of brown silky
+hair which he wears long, and which falls about his head in a most
+picturesque and attractive fashion. He always presides over the piano at
+the orchestral lessons in the conservatory on Sunday mornings, and
+supplies those parts which are wanting. When concertos are performed he
+accompanies. He has a delightful serenity of manner, and sits there with
+quiet dignity, his back to the windows, and the light striking through
+his fluffy hair. He plays beautifully, and composes after Chopin's
+manner. Perhaps he will do greater things and develop a style of his own
+by and by. Every winter he gives a concert in Berlin in the
+Sing-Akademie.
+
+By the way, I would not advise your paying any attention to what G. says
+about music. She is incapable of forming a correct judgment on the
+subject, and she used to provoke me to death with her ignorant and
+sweeping criticisms. I continually set her right, but to hear her go on
+about music and musicians is much like hearing S. R. and the M. crowd
+talk about art. What _can_ be easier or more absurd, than to set
+yourself up and say that "nobody satisfies you." _Stuff!_--As for
+Kullak, I think a master must be judged by the number of players he
+turns out. In the two years that I have studied with him he has formed
+six or eight artists to my knowledge, beside no end of pupils who play
+extremely well. People come to him from all over the world, and as an
+artist himself he ranks first class.
+
+I must tell you about a new acquaintance I've just made, a Mr. P., a
+Harvard man, very fascinating, very brilliant, a great swell, and the
+most perfect _dancer_ I ever saw. I first met this phœnix at a
+dinner, when he fairly sparkled. He seemed to have the history of all
+countries at his tongue's end, and went through revolutions and reigns
+in the most rapid way. We had an animated discussion over the Germans,
+whom he loathes and despises, and he brought up all the historical
+events he could to justify his disgust. I was on the defensive, of
+course. "They've no _delicacy_," said P., in his emphatic way, and I had
+to give in there. Indeed, I can imagine that to a fastidious creature
+like him, imbued, too, with all the Southern chivalry, the Germans would
+be startling, to say the least. "Why," he cried, "they help you at table
+with their own forks after they've been eating with them! What do you
+think my host did to-day? He took a piece of meat that he had begun to
+eat, from _his own plate!_ and put it on to mine with _his own fork!!_
+saying, 'Try this, this is a good piece!'--His intentions were
+excellent, but it never occurred to him that I shouldn't be delighted to
+eat after him."--P. can't bear it when the waiters at the restaurants
+pretend to think him a lord and address him as "Herr Graf." "I'll teach
+them to _Herr Graf_ me," he said between his teeth, lowering his head,
+his eyes flashing dangerous fire. But it is quite likely that they do
+suppose him a lord, for he looks it, "every inch."
+
+I met him again at a reception, and was having a most charming
+conversation with him about Goethe, whom he was dissecting in his keen
+way, when in came Mr. and Mrs. N. I knew at once that there was an end
+of our delightful talk, for though Mrs. N. has a most fascinating and
+high-bred husband herself, and is, moreover, extremely jealous of him,
+she is never content unless the most agreeable man in the room is
+devoted to her, also. Sure enough, she came straight toward us, and took
+occasion to whisper some senseless thing in my ear. Of course Mr. P. had
+to offer her his seat. She was, however, not quite bare-faced enough to
+take it, but she had succeeded in breaking the tête-à-tête and in
+distracting his attention. Soon after another gentleman came up to speak
+to me, Mr. P. bowed, and for the rest of the evening he was pinned to
+Mrs. N.'s side. Such are the satisfactions of parties! Either one does
+not meet any one worth talking to, or the conversation is sure to be
+interrupted. It takes these women of the world, like Mrs. N., to get the
+plums out of the pudding.
+
+However, seeing him dance gave me almost as much pleasure as talking
+with him. He has this air of having danced millions of Germans, and is
+grace and elegance incarnate. Just at the end of the party, he asked me
+for a turn, and we took three long ones. I never enjoyed dancing so
+much. He manages to annihilate his legs entirely, and his arm, though
+strong, is so light that you feel yourself borne along like a bubble,
+and are only conscious that you are sustained and guided. He inspired me
+so that I danced really well, but when he complimented me, I basely
+refrained from letting him know it was all owing to him! By a funny
+coincidence he is the son of that elegant Mrs. P. who was on the steamer
+with me, and his father is very prominent in politics. I remember
+perfectly the pride with which Mrs. P. spoke to me of this son, and how
+slightly interested I was. He accompanied her to the steamer, and in
+fact the first time I saw her was when Mr. T., who was standing by me on
+the deck, said, "That was a _mother's_ kiss," as she rapturously
+embraced him on taking leave. I didn't notice Mr. P. at all, though he
+says he remembers me perfectly standing there. He is going, or has gone,
+to Russia, and from there he will rejoin his family in Paris. That is
+the worst of being abroad. Charming people pass over your path like
+comets and disappear never to be seen again.
+
+By the way, I now feel equal to anything in the shape of a German dance.
+Perhaps that may seem to you a trifling statement; but little do you
+know on the subject if it does. If you've ever read "Fitz Boodle's
+Confessions," you will remember that he represents the German dancing as
+a thing fearful and wonderful to the inexperienced, and how the match
+between him and Dorothea was broken off by his falling with her during
+the waltz, and rolling over and over. Here _everybody_ dances, old and
+young, and you'll see fat old married ladies waddle off with their gray
+and spindle-shanked husbands. Declining doesn't help you in the least,
+and you are liable to be whisked off without notice by some old fellow
+who revolves with you like lightning on the tips of his toes, his
+coat-tails flying at an angle of considerably _more_ than forty-five
+degrees. Reversing is unknown, and consequently you see the room go
+spinning round with you.
+
+I always thought, though, that if one _could_ take their steps, it might
+be pretty good fun. So, after a pause of three years, I finally
+concluded this winter to go to some German balls and try it again. The
+first one I attended was an artists' ball. There was first a little
+concert (at which I played), then a supper at ten o'clock, and then the
+dancing began. The dancing cards were handed round at supper, and my
+various acquaintances came up to ask me for different dances. The first
+one asked me for the Polonaise. "Delighted!" said I;--not that I had the
+remotest idea what a "polonaise" was, but I was determined not to
+flinch. The second engaged me for the "Quadrille à la Cour," and the
+third for the "Rheinlaender," etc., etc. I assented to everything with
+outward alacrity, but with some inward trepidation, for I thought it
+rather a bold stroke to get up at a large ball and attempt to dance a
+string of things I had never heard of! However, I was in luck. The
+Polonaise turned out to be merely walking, but in different figures, and
+this, before the conclusion of it, makes you continually change partners
+until you have promenaded and spoken with every one of the opposite sex
+in the room. This is to get the whole party acquainted. When you finally
+get back to your own partner, it breaks up with a waltz, and so ends.
+
+My partner was a young artist, half painter, half musician, and a very
+intelligent and in fact charming talker. Like most artists, his dress
+was rather at sixes and sevens. He had on a swallow-tailed coat, but it
+did not fit him, so I conclude it was borrowed or hired for the
+occasion. It was so wide, and so long, that when I saw him dancing with
+some one else, I thought I must have made a laughable figure with him,
+for he was small into the bargain. However, he had that sunny,
+happy-go-lucky way about him that all artists have when they're in good
+humour, and he was a capital dancer. When I came back to him at the end
+of the Polonaise I started off with a mental "Now for it," for the waltz
+was the thing I was most afraid of; but to my surprise, I got on most
+beautifully. Emboldened by success, I went on recklessly. "Rheinlaender"
+turned out to be the schottisch, and "Quadrille à la Cour" the lancers,
+so I was all right. They had to be danced in the German sense of the
+word, of course, but with courage it is possible to do it. Since this
+ball I have been to two others, and am now pronounced by the gentlemen
+to be a finished dancer. I don't know how I learned, but it seemed to
+come to me with a sudden inspiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     A German Professor. Sherwood. The Baroness von S. Von Bülow. A
+     German Party. Joachim. The Baroness at Home.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _February 25, 1873_.
+
+At Mr. P.'s we had a charming dinner the other day, which was as
+sociable as possible, though we sat thirteen at table. Think what an
+oversight! I believe though, that I was the only one who perceived it. I
+sat next to a German professor, who is said to speak sixty-four
+languages! He had a little compact head, which looked as if it were
+stuffed and crammed to the utmost. I reflected a long time which of his
+sixty-four languages I should start him on, but finally concluded that
+as I spoke English with tolerable fluency we would confine ourselves to
+that! He was perfectly delightful to talk to, as all these German
+_savans_ are, and I got a lot of new ideas from him. He had been writing
+a pamphlet on the subject of love, as considered in various ancient and
+modern languages, and in it he proves that the passion of love used to
+be quite a different thing from what it is now. All this ideality of
+sentiment is entirely modern.
+
+My friend Miss B. is playing exquisitely now, and Sherwood is going
+ahead like a young giant. To-day Kullak said that Sherwood played
+Beethoven's E flat major concerto (the hardest of all Beethoven's
+concertos) with a perfection that he had rarely heard equalled. So much
+for being a genius, for he is still under twenty, and has only been
+abroad a year or two. But he studied with our best American master,
+William Mason, and played like an artist before he came. But, then,
+Sherwood has one enormous advantage that no master on earth can bestow,
+and that is, perfect confidence in himself. There's nothing like having
+faith in yourself, and I believe _that_ is the kind of faith that "moves
+mountains."
+
+At Mr. Bancroft's grand party for Washington's birthday, last Friday, he
+presented me to the Baroness von S., but without telling her that I was
+the person who wrote that letter about her and Wilhelmj that M.
+published without my knowledge in _Dwight's Journal_. She was as
+exquisite as I thought she would be, and is the most bewitching
+creature! She is just such a woman as Balzac describes--like Honorine,
+for instance. She has "_l'oeil plein de feu_," etc., and is grace and
+sentiment personified.
+
+She was dressed in white silk, cut square neck and trimmed with a lot of
+little box-plaited ruffles round the bottom. Round her throat was a
+black velvet ribbon, with a necklace of magnificent pearls fastened to
+it in festoons and a diamond pendant in the middle. She greeted me with
+a ceremonious bow, and began the conversation by complimenting me on an
+accompaniment I had been playing. I told her I was studying music here,
+and that I had been in Tausig's conservatory a year. As soon as I
+mentioned him we got on delightfully, for she was his favourite pupil,
+and we talked a good deal about him and Bülow. She said she had heard
+Tausig play everything he ever learned, she thought, and that only a
+fortnight before his death, he was at her house and played Chopin's
+first Sonata. The last movement comes after the well-known Funeral March
+(which forms the Adagio) and is very peculiar. It is a continual running
+movement with both hands in unison, and it is played all muffled, and
+with the soft pedal. Kullak thinks that Chopin meant to express that
+after the grave all is dust and ashes, but the Baroness said that Tausig
+thought Chopin meant to represent by it the ghost of the departed
+wandering about. On this occasion, when Tausig had finished playing it,
+he turned and said to her, "That seems to me like the wind blowing over
+my grave." A fortnight later he was dead! I asked her if it were not
+dreadful that such an artist should have died so young. The most pained
+look came into her beautiful eyes, and she said, "I have _never_ been
+able to reconcile myself to it."
+
+The conversation continued in the most charming manner until von Moltke
+came up to speak to her on one side and Mr. Bancroft on the other
+offered his arm to lead her into the supper-room. "Did you tell her?"
+whispered Mr. Bancroft. "No; how could I?" said I. "_You_ ought to tell
+her." So I imagine he did tell her, as they went into supper, that I was
+the young lady who had described her in the paper. I did not have a
+chance to approach her again until just as I was going home. She was
+standing in the door-way of an ante-room with Mr. Bancroft, wrapped in
+her opera cloak and waiting for her carriage to be announced. I bade Mr.
+Bancroft good-night, and as I passed her she put out her hand and said
+to me with a meaning look, in her little hesitating English, "I am so
+happy to have met you." I told her I owed her an apology, which I hoped
+to make another time. "Oh, no," said she, smilingly, "I am very
+thankful."--I suppose she meant "very much flattered," or something of
+that kind.
+
+I heard two tremendous concerts of Bülow's lately. Oh, I do hope you'll
+hear him some day! He is a colossal artist. I never heard a pianist I
+liked so well. He has such perfect mastery, and yet such comprehension
+and such sympathy. Among other things, he played Beethoven's last
+Sonata. Such a magnificent one as it is! I liked it better than the
+Appassionata.
+
+The other night I went to a party at a General von der G.'s. It was a
+"dreadfully" elegant set of people--all countesses, Vons and generals'
+wives. Stiff, oh, _how_ stiff! I felt as if the ladies did me a personal
+favor every time they spoke to me. They were very handsomely dressed,
+and wore their family jewels. There was a great deal of music, and a
+certain old Herr von K. sat on a sofa and nodded his head _à la_
+connoisseur, while the officers stood round and scarcely dared to wink.
+The formality did not abate till we adjourned to the supper-room, when,
+as is always the case in German parties, everybody's tongue suddenly
+became loosed.--Germans are the happiest people _at_ supper, and the
+most wretched before it, that you ever saw. Their parties are _always_
+"just so." So many hours of propriety beforehand,--the ladies all by
+themselves round a centre-table in one room, the young girls discreetly
+sandwiched in between with their embroidery, and talking on the most
+limited subjects in the most "papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism"
+manner--and the men in the other room playing cards. On this occasion,
+when we went into supper, there was one large central table covered with
+the feast, and then there were little tables standing about, whither you
+could retire with your prey when you had once secured it. I got
+something, and betook myself to a table in the corner, whither a young
+artist, also Miss B. and an officer, the son of the celebrated General
+von W., who won the battle of something, speedily followed me. The
+artist, Herr Meyer, sat opposite me, and I began to jabber with him,
+unmindful of the officer, as I had previously tried him on every subject
+in the known world without being able to extract a reply. We gradually
+collected a miscellaneous array of plates full of things, when I dropped
+one of my spoons on the floor. I picked it up, laid it aside, and began
+eating out of one of my other plates. Presently the officer, who had
+been glaring at me all the while out of his uniform, rose solemnly and
+went to the centre-table and returned. Suddenly I became aware, by my
+light being obscured, that he was standing opposite me on the other side
+of the table. I glanced up, and remarked that he had a spoon in his
+thumb and finger. As he did not offer it, however, it did not occur to
+me that it was for me, so I went on eating. After a minute I looked up
+again, and he was still standing as if he were pointing a gun, the spoon
+between thumb and finger. At last it dawned upon me that he had brought
+it for me, so I took it out of his hand and thanked him, whereupon he
+resumed his seat. I was so overcome by this unheard-of act of gallantry
+on the part of an aristocrat! and an officer!! that I felt I must say
+something worthy of the occasion. So after a few minutes I remarked to
+him, "Everything tastes very sweet out of _this_ spoon!"--Total silence
+and impassibility of countenance on his part.--Miss B., who was sitting
+opposite, remarked mischievously, "That was entirely lost, my dear," and
+I was so depressed by my failure that I subsided and did not try to
+kindle him again.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _April 14, 1873_.
+
+Colonel B. told me some weeks ago, that Kullak had told him I was ready
+for the concert room, and that he would like to have me play at court.
+If this is his real opinion _I_ have no evidence of it, for he knows I
+am anxious to play in concert before I leave Germany, and yet he does
+nothing whatever to bring me forward. It is very discouraging. In this
+conservatory there is no stimulus whatever. One might as well be a
+machine.
+
+I propose to go to Weimar the last of this week. It seems very strange
+that I shall actually know Liszt at last, after hearing of him so many
+years. I am wild to see him! They say everything depends upon the humour
+he happens to be in when you come to him. I hope I shall hit upon one
+of his indulgent moments. Every one says he gives no lessons. But I hope
+at least to play to him a few times, and what is more important, to hear
+_him_ play repeatedly. Happy the pianist who can catch even a faint
+reflection of his wonderful style!
+
+Not long ago Mr. Bancroft invited me to drive out to Tegel, Humboldt's
+country-seat, near here, with the Joachims, and so I had a three hours
+conversation with _that_ idol! He is the most modest, unpretending man
+possible. To hear him talk you wouldn't suppose he could play at all.
+I've always said to myself that if anything would be heaven, it would be
+to play a sonata with Joachim, but have supposed such a thing to be
+unattainable--these master-artists are so proud and unapproachable. But
+I think now it might not have been so difficult after all, he is so
+lovely. Joachim was very quiet during the first part of the excursion,
+and I couldn't think how I could get him to talk. At last I mentioned
+Wagner, whom I knew he hated. His eyes kindled, and he roused up, and
+after that was animated and interesting all the rest of the time! He
+said that "Wagner was under the delusion that he was the only man in the
+world that understood Beethoven; but it happened there _were_ other
+people who could comprehend Beethoven as well as he,"--and indeed, it is
+difficult to conceive of any one understanding Beethoven any better than
+Joachim.
+
+Joachim is quite as noble and generous to poor artists as Liszt is, and
+constantly teaches them for nothing. He has the greatest enthusiasm for
+his class in the Hoch Schule, and I shouldn't think that any one who
+wishes to study the violin would _think_ of going any where else. They
+say that Joachim possesses beautiful social qualities, also, and has the
+faculty of entertaining in his own house charmingly. He brings out what
+there is in every one without apparently saying anything himself.
+
+The Baroness von S. had seemed so cordial and friendly at Mr. Bancroft's
+on account of the letter you had published in _Dwight's Journal of
+Music_, that I finally made up my mind to the daring act of calling on
+her in order to ask her for a letter of introduction to Liszt. She lives
+in a palace belonging to the Empress. There is a deep court in front of
+it, with lions on the gateway. Before the door stood a soldier on guard.
+As I approached, one of the Gardes du Corps (the Crown Prince's
+regiment) emerged from the entrance. He was dressed all in white and
+silver, with big top boots, and his helmet surmounted by a silver eagle.
+He was an officer, and of course all the officers in this regiment
+belong to the flower of the nobility. I was rather awed by his imposing
+appearance, and advanced timidly to the doors, which were of glass, and
+pulled the bell. A tall phantom in livery appeared, as if by magic, and
+signed to me to ascend the grand staircase. The walls of it were all
+covered with pictures. I went up, and was received by another tall
+phantom in livery. I asked him "if the Frau Excellency was to be
+spoken." He took my card, and discreetly said, "he would see," at the
+same time ushering me into an immense ball-room, where he requested me
+to be seated. It was furnished in crimson satin, there were myriads of
+mirrors, and the floor was waxed. I took refuge in a corner of it,
+feeling very small indeed. Those few minutes of waiting were extremely
+uncomfortable, for I didn't know what she would say to my request, as I
+had only seen her that one time at Mr. Bancroft's, and was not sure that
+she would not regard my coming as a liberty. People are so severe in
+their ideas here.
+
+At last the servant returned and said she would receive me, and led the
+way across the ball-room to a door which he opened for me to enter. I
+found myself in a large, high room, also furnished in crimson, and in
+the centre of which stood two pianos nestled lovingly together. The
+Baroness was not there, however, and I saw what seemed to be an endless
+succession of rooms opening one out of the other, the doors always
+opposite each other. I concluded to "go on till I stopped," and after
+traversing three or four, I at last heard a faint murmur of voices, and
+entered what I suppose is her _boudoir_. There my divinity was seated in
+a little crimson satin sofa, talking to an old fellow who sat on a chair
+near her, whom she introduced as Herr Professor Somebody. He had a
+small, well-stuffed head, and a pale, observant eye that seemed to say,
+"I've looked into everything"--and I should think it _had_ by the way he
+conversed.
+
+The Baroness was attired in an olive-coloured silk, short, and
+fashionably made. She was leaning forward as she talked, and toying with
+a silver-sheathed dagger which she took from a table loaded with costly
+trifles next her. She rose as I came in, and greeted me very cordially,
+and asked me to sit down on the sofa by her. I explained to her my
+errand, and she immediately said she would give me a letter with the
+greatest pleasure. We had a very charming conversation about artists in
+general, and Liszt in particular, in which the little professor took a
+leading part. He showed himself the connoisseur he looked, and gradually
+diverged from the art of music to that of speaking and reading, which he
+said was the most difficult of all the arts, because the tone was not
+there, but had to be made. He said he had never heard a perfect speaker
+or reader in his life. He descanted at great length upon the art of
+speaking, and finally, when he paused, the Baroness took my hand and
+said, "Where do you live?" I gave her my address, and she said she would
+send me the letter. I then rose to go, and she assured me again she
+would say all she could to dispose Liszt favourably towards me. I
+thanked her, and said good-bye. She waited till I was nearly half across
+the next room, and then she called after me, "I'll say lots of pretty
+things about you!" That was a real little piece of coquetry on her part,
+and she knew that it would take me down! She looked so sweet when she
+said it, standing and smiling there in the middle of the floor, the
+door-way making a frame for her. A few days afterward I met her in the
+street, and she told me she had enjoined it upon Liszt to be amiable to
+me, "but," she added, with a mischievous laugh, "I didn't tell him you
+wrote so well for the papers." Oh, she is too fascinating for
+anything!--She seems just to float on the top of the wave and never to
+think. Such exquisite perception and intelligence, and yet lightness!
+
+The last excitement in Berlin was over the wedding of Prince Albrecht
+(the son of the one whose funeral I saw) with the Princess of Altenburg.
+When she arrived she made a regular entry into the city in a coach all
+gold and glass, drawn by eight superb plumed horses. A band of music
+went before her, and she had an escort all in grand equipages. As she
+sat on the back seat with the Crown Princess, magnificently dressed, and
+bowing from side to side, you rubbed your eyes and thought you saw
+Cinderella!
+
+
+
+
+WITH LISZT.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+     Arrives in Weimar. Liszt at the Theatre. At a Party. At his own
+     House.
+
+
+    WEIMAR, _May 1, 1873_.
+
+Last night I arrived in Weimar, and this evening I have been to the
+theatre, which is very cheap here, and the first person I saw, sitting
+in a box opposite, was Liszt, from whom, as you know, I am bent on
+getting lessons, though it will be a difficult thing I fear, as I am
+told that Weimar is overcrowded with people who are on the same errand.
+I recognized Liszt from his portrait, and it entertained and interested
+me very much to observe him. He was making himself agreeable to three
+ladies, one of whom was very pretty. He sat with his back to the stage,
+not paying the least attention, apparently, to the play, for he kept
+talking all the while himself, and yet no point of it escaped him, as I
+could tell by his expression and gestures.
+
+Liszt is the most interesting and striking looking man imaginable. Tall
+and slight, with deep-set eyes, shaggy eyebrows, and long iron-gray
+hair, which he wears parted in the middle. His mouth turns up at the
+corners, which gives him a most crafty and Mephistophelean expression
+when he smiles, and his whole appearance and manner have a sort of
+Jesuitical elegance and ease. His hands are very narrow, with long and
+slender fingers that look as if they had twice as many joints as other
+people's. They are so flexible and supple that it makes you nervous to
+look at them. Anything like the polish of his manner I never saw. When
+he got up to leave the box, for instance, after his adieux to the
+ladies, he laid his hand on his heart and made his final bow,--not with
+affectation, or in mere gallantry, but with a quiet courtliness which
+made you feel that no other way of bowing to a lady was right or proper.
+It was most characteristic.
+
+But the most extraordinary thing about Liszt is his wonderful variety of
+expression and play of feature. One moment his face will look dreamy,
+shadowy, tragic. The next he will be insinuating, amiable, ironical,
+sardonic; but always the same captivating grace of manner. He is a
+perfect study. I cannot imagine how he must look when he is playing. He
+is all spirit, but half the time, at least, a mocking spirit, I should
+say. I have heard the most remarkable stories about him already. All
+Weimar adores him, and people say that women still go perfectly crazy
+over him. When he walks out he bows to everybody just like a King! The
+Grand Duke has presented him with a house beautifully situated on the
+park, and here he lives elegantly, free of expense, whenever he chooses
+to come to it.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _May 7, 1873_.
+
+There isn't a piano to be had in Weimar for love or money, as there is
+no manufactory, and the few there were to be disposed of were snatched
+up before I got here. So I have lost an entire week in hunting one up,
+and was obliged to go first to Erfurt and finally to Leipsic, before I
+could find one--and even that was sent over as a favour after much
+coaxing and persuasion. I felt so happy when I fairly saw it in my room!
+As if I had taken a city! However, I met Liszt two evenings ago at a
+little tea-party given by a friend and _protégée_ of his to as many of
+his scholars as have arrived, I being asked with the rest. Liszt
+promised to come late. We only numbered seven. There were three young
+men and four young ladies, of whom three, including myself, were
+Americans. Five of the number had studied with Liszt before, and the
+young men are artists already before the public.
+
+To fill up the time till Liszt came, our hostess made us play, one after
+the other, beginning with the latest arrival. After we had each
+"exhibited," little tables were brought in and supper served. We were in
+the midst of it, and having a merry time, when the door suddenly opened
+and Liszt appeared. We all rose to our feet, and he shook hands with
+everybody without waiting to be introduced. Liszt looks as if he had
+been through everything, and has a face _seamed_ with experience. He is
+rather tall and narrow, and wears a long abbé's coat reaching nearly
+down to his feet. He made me think of an old time magician more than
+anything, and I felt that with a touch of his wand he could transform us
+all. After he had finished his greetings, he passed into the next room
+and sat down. The young men gathered round him and offered him a cigar,
+which he accepted and began to smoke. We others continued our nonsense
+where we were, and I suppose Liszt overheard some of our brilliant
+conversation, for he asked who we were, I think, and presently the lady
+of the house came out after Miss W. and me, the two American strangers,
+to take us in and present us to him.
+
+After the preliminary greetings we had some little talk. He asked me if
+I had been to Sophie Menter's concert in Berlin the other day. I said
+yes. He remarked that Miss Menter was a great favourite of his, and that
+the lady from whom I had brought a letter to him had done a good deal
+for her. I asked him if Sophie Menter were a pupil of his. He said no,
+he could not take the credit of her artistic success to himself. I heard
+afterwards that he really had done ever so much for her, but he won't
+have it said that he teaches! After he had finished his cigar, Liszt got
+up and said, "America is now to have the floor," and requested Miss W.
+to play for him. This was a dreadful ordeal for us new arrivals, for we
+had not expected to be called upon. I began to quake inwardly, for I had
+been without a piano for nearly a week, and was not at all prepared to
+play to him, while Miss W. had been up since five o'clock in the
+morning, and had travelled all day. However, there was no getting off. A
+request from Liszt is a command, and Miss W. sat down, and acquitted
+herself as well as could have been expected under the circumstances.
+Liszt waved his hand and nodded his head from time to time, and seemed
+pleased, I thought. He then called upon Leitert, who played a
+composition of Liszt's own most beautifully. Liszt commended him and
+patted him on the back. As soon as Leitert had finished, I slipped off
+into the back room, hoping Liszt would forget all about me, but he
+followed me almost immediately, like a cat with a mouse, took both my
+hands in his, and said in the most winning way imaginable,
+"_Mademoiselle, vous jouerez quelque-chose, n'est-ce-pas?_" I can't give
+you any idea of his _persuasiveness_, when he chooses. It is enough to
+decoy you into anything. It was such a desperate moment that I became
+reckless, and without even telling him that I was out of practice and
+not prepared to play, I sat down and plunged into the A flat major
+Ballade of Chopin, as if I were possessed. The piano had a splendid
+touch, luckily. Liszt kept calling out "Bravo" every minute or two, to
+encourage me, and somehow, I got through. When I had finished, he
+clapped his hands and said, "Bravely played." He asked with whom I had
+studied, and made one or two little criticisms. I hoped he would shove
+me aside and play it himself, but he didn't.
+
+Liszt is just like a monarch, and no one dares speak to him until he
+addresses one first, which I think no fun. He did not play to us at all,
+except when some one asked him if he had heard R. play that afternoon.
+R. is a young organist from Leipsic, who telegraphed to Liszt to ask him
+if he might come over and play to him on the organ. Liszt, with his
+usual amiability, answered that he might. "Oh," said Liszt, with an
+indescribably comic look, "he improvised for me a whole half-hour in
+this style,"--and then he got up and went to the piano, and without
+sitting down he played some ridiculous chords in the middle of the
+key-board, and then little trills and turns high up in the treble, which
+made us all burst out laughing. Shortly after I had played I took my
+leave. Liszt had gone into the other room to smoke, and I didn't care to
+follow him, as I saw that he was tired, and had no intention of playing
+to us. Our hostess told Miss W. and me to "slip out so that he would not
+perceive it." Yesterday Miss W. went to see him, and he asked her if she
+knew that Miss "Fy," and told her to tell me to come to him. So I shall
+present myself to-morrow, though I don't know how the lion will act when
+I beard him in his den.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _May 21, 1873_.
+
+Liszt is so _besieged_ by people and so tormented with applications,
+that I fear I should only have been sent away if I had come without the
+Baroness von S.'s letter of introduction, for he admires her extremely,
+and I judge that she has much influence with him. He says "people fly in
+his face by dozens," and seem to think he is "only there to give
+lessons." He gives _no_ paid lessons whatever, as he is much too grand
+for that, but if one has talent enough, or pleases him, he lets one come
+to him and play to him. I go to him every other day, but I don't play
+more than twice a week, as I cannot prepare so much, but I listen to the
+others. Up to this point there have been only four in the class besides
+myself, and I am the only new one. From four to six P. M. is the time
+when he receives his scholars. The first time I went I did not play to
+him, but listened to the rest. Urspruch and Leitert, the two young men
+whom I met the other night, have studied with Liszt a long time, and
+both play superbly. Fräulein Schultz and Miss Gaul (of Baltimore), are
+also most gifted creatures.
+
+As I entered Liszt's salon, Urspruch was performing Schumann's Symphonic
+Studies--an immense composition, and one that it took at least half an
+hour to get through. He played so splendidly that my heart sank down
+into the very depths. I thought I should never get on _there_! Liszt
+came forward and greeted me in a very friendly manner as I entered. He
+was in very good humour that day, and made some little witticisms.
+Urspruch asked him what title he should give to a piece he was
+composing. "_Per aspera ad astra_," said Liszt. This was such a good hit
+that I began to laugh, and he seemed to enjoy my appreciation of his
+little sarcasm. I did not play that time, as my piano had only just
+come, and I was not prepared to do so, but I went home and practiced
+tremendously for several days on Chopin's B minor sonata. It is a great
+composition, and one of his last works. When I thought I could play it,
+I went to Liszt, though with a trembling heart. I cannot tell you what
+it has cost me every time I have ascended his stairs. I can scarcely
+summon up courage to go there, and generally stand on the steps awhile
+before I can make up my mind to open the door and go in!
+
+This day it was particularly trying, as it was really my first serious
+performance before him, and he speaks so very indistinctly that I
+feared I shouldn't understand his corrections, and that he would get out
+of patience with me, for he cannot bear to explain. I think he hates the
+trouble of speaking German, for he mutters his words and does not half
+finish his sentences. Yesterday when I was there he spoke to me in
+French all the time, and to the others in German,--one of his funny
+whims, I suppose.
+
+Well, on this day the artists Leitert and Urspruch, and the young
+composer Metzdorf, who is always hanging about Liszt, were in the room
+when I came. They had probably been playing. At first Liszt took no
+notice of me beyond a greeting, till Metzdorf said to him, "Herr Doctor,
+Miss Fay has brought a sonata." "Ah, well, let us hear it," said Liszt.
+Just then he left the room for a minute, and I told the three gentlemen
+that they ought to go away and let me play to Liszt alone, for I felt
+nervous about playing before them. They all laughed at me and said they
+would not budge an inch. When Liszt came back they said to him, "Only
+think, Herr Doctor, Miss Fay proposes to send us all home." I said I
+could not play before such great artists. "Oh, that is healthy for you,"
+said Liszt, with a smile, and added, "you have a very choice audience,
+now." I don't know whether he appreciated how nervous I was, but instead
+of walking up and down the room as he often does, he sat down by me like
+any other teacher, and heard me play the first movement. It was
+frightfully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed to get
+through with it pretty successfully. Nothing could exceed Liszt's
+amiability, or the trouble he gave himself, and instead of frightening
+me, he inspired me. Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is
+the first sympathetic one I've had. You feel so _free_ with him, and he
+develops the very spirit of music in you. He doesn't keep nagging at you
+all the time, but he leaves you your own conception. Now and then he
+will make a criticism, or play a passage, and with a few words give you
+enough to think of all the rest of your life. There is a delicate
+_point_ to everything he says, as subtle as he is himself. He doesn't
+tell you anything about the technique. That you must work out for
+yourself. When I had finished the first movement of the sonata, Liszt,
+as he always does, said "Bravo!" Taking my seat, he made some little
+criticisms, and then told me to go on and play the rest of it.
+
+Now, I only half knew the other movements, for the first one was so
+extremely difficult that it cost me all the labour I could give to
+prepare that. But playing to Liszt reminds me of trying to feed the
+elephant in the Zoological Garden with lumps of sugar. He disposes of
+whole movements as if they were nothing, and stretches out gravely for
+more! One of my fingers fortunately began to bleed, for I had practiced
+the skin off, and that gave me a good excuse for stopping. Whether he
+was pleased at this proof of industry, I know not; but after looking at
+my finger and saying, "Oh!" very compassionately, he sat down and played
+the whole three last movements himself. That was a great deal, and
+showed off all his powers. It was the first time I had heard him, and I
+don't know which was the most extraordinary,--the Scherzo, with its
+wonderful lightness and swiftness, the Adagio with its depth and pathos,
+or the last movement, where the whole key-board seemed to "_donnern und
+blitzen_ (thunder and lighten)." There is such a vividness about
+everything he plays that it does not seem as if it were mere music you
+were listening to, but it is as if he had called up a real, living
+_form_, and you saw it breathing before your face and eyes. It gives
+_me_ almost a ghostly feeling to hear him, and it seems as if the air
+were peopled with spirits. Oh, he is a perfect wizard! It is as
+interesting to see him as it is to hear him, for his face changes with
+every modulation of the piece, and he looks exactly as he is playing. He
+has one element that is most captivating, and that is, a sort of
+delicate and fitful mirth that keeps peering out at you here and there!
+It is most peculiar, and when he plays that way, the most bewitching
+little expression comes over his face. It seems as if a little spirit of
+joy were playing hide and go seek with you.
+
+On Friday Liszt came and paid me a visit, and even played a little on my
+piano.--Only think what an honour! At the same time he told me to come
+to him that afternoon and play to him, and invited me also to a matinee
+he was going to give on Sunday for some countess of distinction who was
+here for a few days. None of the other scholars were asked, and when I
+entered the room there were only three persons in it beside Liszt. One
+was the Grand Duke himself, the other was the Countess von M. (born a
+Russian Princess), and the third was a Russian minister's wife. They
+were all four standing in a little knot, speaking in French together. I
+had no idea who they were, as the Grand Duke was in morning costume, and
+had no star or decoration to distinguish him. I saw at a glance,
+however, that they were all swells, and so I didn't speak to any of
+them, luckily, though it was an even chance that I had not said
+something to avoid the awkwardness of standing there like a post, for I
+had been told beforehand that Liszt never introduced people to each
+other. Liszt greeted me in a very friendly manner, and introduced me to
+the countess, but she was so dreadfully set up that it was impossible to
+get more than a few icy words out of her. I was thankful enough when
+more people arrived, so that I could retire to a corner and sit down
+without being observed, for it was a very uncomfortable situation to be
+standing, a stranger, close to four fashionables and not dare to speak
+to _any_ of them because they did not address me.
+
+After the company was all assembled, it numbered eighteen persons,
+nearly all of whom were titled. I was the only unimportant one in it.
+Liszt was so sweet. He kept coming over to where I sat and talking to
+me, and promised me a ticket for a private concert where only his
+compositions were to be performed. He seemed determined to make me feel
+at home. He played five times, but no _great_ work, which was a
+disappointment to me, particularly as the last three times he played
+duetts with a leading Weimar artist named Lassen, who was present. He
+made me come and turn the leaves. Gracious! how he _does_ read! It is
+very difficult to turn for him, for he reads ever so far ahead of what
+he is playing, and takes in fully five bars at a glance, so you have to
+guess about where you _think_ he would like to have the page over. Once
+I turned it too late, and once too early, and he snatched it out of my
+hand and whirled it back.--Not quite the situation for timorous me, was
+it?
+
+May 21.--To-day being my birthday, I thought I must go to Liszt by way
+of celebration. I wasn't really ready to play to him, but I took his
+second Ballade with me, and thought I'd ask him some questions about
+some hard places in it. He insisted upon my playing it. When we came in
+he looked indisposed and nervous, and there happened to be a good many
+artists there. We always lay our notes on the table, and he takes them,
+looks them over, and calls out what he'll have played. He remarked this
+piece and called out "_Wer spielt diese grosse mächtige Ballade von
+mir?_ (Who plays this great and mighty ballad of mine?)" I felt as if he
+had asked "Who killed Cock Robin?" and as if I were the one who had done
+it, only I did not feel like "owning up" to it quite so glibly as the
+sparrow had, for Liszt seemed to be in very bad humour, and had roughed
+the one who had played before me. I finally mustered up my courage and
+said "_Ich_," but told him I did not know it perfectly yet. He said, "No
+matter; play it." So I sat down, expecting he would take my head off,
+but, strange to say, he seemed to be delighted with my playing, and said
+that I had "quite touched him." Think of that from Liszt, and when I was
+playing his own composition! When I went out he accompanied me to the
+door, took my hand in both of his and said, "To-day you've covered
+yourself with glory!" I told him I had only _begun_ it, and I hoped he
+would let me play it again when I knew it better. "What," said he, "I
+must pay you a still greater compliment, must I?" "Of course," said I.
+"_Il faut vouz gâter?_" "Oui," said I. He laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+     Liszt's Drawing-room. An Artist's Walking Party. Liszt's Teaching.
+
+
+    WEIMAR, _May 29, 1873_.
+
+I am having the most heavenly time in Weimar, studying with Liszt, and
+sometimes I can scarcely realize that I am at that summit of my
+ambition, to be _his_ pupil! It was the Baroness von S.'s letter that
+secured it for me, I am sure. He is so overrun with people, that I think
+it is a wonder he is civil to anybody, but he is the most amiable man I
+ever knew, though he _can_ be dreadful, too, when he chooses, and he
+understands how to put people outside his door in as short a space of
+time as it can be done. I go to him three times a week. At home Liszt
+doesn't wear his long abbé's coat, but a short one, in which he looks
+much more artistic. His figure is remarkably slight, but his head is
+most imposing.--It is _so_ delicious in that room of his! It was all
+furnished and put in order for him by the Grand Duchess herself. The
+walls are pale gray, with a gilded border running round the room, or
+rather two rooms, which are divided, but not separated, by crimson
+curtains. The furniture is crimson, and everything is so
+_comfortable_--such a contrast to German bareness and stiffness
+generally. A splendid grand piano stands in one window (he receives a
+new one every year). The other window is always wide open, and looks
+out on the park. There is a dove-cote just opposite the window, and the
+doves promenade up and down on the roof of it, and fly about, and
+sometimes whirr down on the sill itself. That pleases Liszt. His
+writing-table is beautifully fitted up with things that all match.
+Everything is in bronze--ink-stand, paper-weight, match-box, etc., and
+there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which he and the
+gentlemen can light their cigars. There is a carpet on the floor, a
+rarity in Germany, and Liszt generally walks about, and smokes, and
+mutters (he can never be said to _talk_), and calls upon one or other of
+us to play. From time to time he will sit down and play himself where a
+passage does not suit him, and when he is in good spirits he makes
+little jests all the time. His playing was a complete revelation to me,
+and has given me an entirely new insight into music. You cannot
+conceive, without hearing him, how poetic he is, or the thousand
+_nuances_ that he can throw into the simplest thing, and he is equally
+great on all sides. From the zephyr to the tempest, the whole scale is
+equally at his command.
+
+But Liszt is not at all like a master, and cannot be treated like one.
+He is a monarch, and when he extends his royal sceptre you can sit down
+and play to him. You never can ask him to play anything for you, no
+matter how much you're dying to hear it. If he is in the mood he will
+play, if not, you must content yourself with a few remarks. You cannot
+even offer to play yourself. You lay your notes on the table, so he can
+see that you _want_ to play, and sit down. He takes a turn up and down
+the room, looks at the music, and if the piece interests him, he will
+call upon you. We bring the same piece to him but once, and but once
+play it through.
+
+Yesterday I had prepared for him his _Au Bord d'une Source_. I was
+nervous and played badly. He was not to be put out, however, but acted
+as if he thought I had played charmingly, and then he sat down and
+played the whole piece himself, oh, _so_ exquisitely! It made me feel
+like a wood-chopper. The notes just seemed to ripple off his fingers'
+ends with scarce any perceptible motion. As he neared the close I
+remarked that that funny little expression came over his face which he
+always has when he means to surprise you, and he suddenly took an
+unexpected chord and extemporized a poetical little end, quite different
+from the written one.--Do you wonder that people go distracted over him?
+
+Weimar is a lovely little place, and there are most beautiful walks all
+about. Ascension being a holiday here, all we pianists made up a walking
+party out to Tiefurt, about two miles distant. We went in the afternoon
+and returned in the evening. The walk lay through the woods, and was
+perfectly exquisite the whole way. As we came back in the evening the
+nightingales were singing, and I could not help wishing that P. were
+there to hear them, as he has such a passion for birds. There are
+cuckoos here, too, and you hear them calling "cuckoo, cuckoo." Metzdorf
+and I danced on the hard road, to the edification of all the others. In
+Tiefurt we partook of a magnificent collation consisting of a mug of
+beer, brown bread and sausage! Some of the party preferred coffee, among
+whom was Metzdorf, who made us laugh by sticking the coffee-pot into his
+inside coat pocket as soon as he had poured out his first cup, in order
+to make sure that the others didn't take more than their share; he would
+coolly take it out, help himself, and put it back again. The servant who
+waited got frightened, and thought he was going to steal it. Afterwards
+when we were playing games and wanted the door shut, the host came and
+opened it, and would not allow us to shut it, because he said we might
+carry off something! How's that!
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _June 6, 1873_.
+
+When I first came there were only five of us who studied with Liszt, but
+lately a good many others have been there. Day before yesterday there
+came a young lady who was a pupil of Henselt in St. Petersburg. She is
+immensely talented, only seventeen years old, and her name is Laura
+Kahrer. It is a very rare thing to see a pupil of Henselt, for it is
+very difficult to get lessons from him. He stands next to Liszt. This
+Laura Kahrer plays everything that ever was heard of, and she played a
+fugue of her own composition the other day that was really vigorous and
+good. I was quite astonished to hear how she had worked it up. She has
+made a grand concert tour in Russia. I never saw such a hand as she had.
+She could bend it backwards till it looked like the palm of her hand
+turned inside out. She was an interesting little creature, with dark
+eyes and hair, and one could see by her Turkish necklace and numerous
+bangles that she had been making money. She played with the greatest
+_aplomb_, though her touch had a certain roughness about it to my ear.
+She did not carry me away, but I have not heard many pieces from her.
+
+However, all playing sounds barren by the side of Liszt, for _his_ is
+the living, breathing impersonation of poetry, passion, grace, wit,
+coquetry, daring, tenderness and every other fascinating attribute that
+you can think of! I'm ready to hang myself half the time when I've been
+to him. Oh, he is the most phenomenal being in every respect! All that
+you've heard of him would never give you an idea of him. In short, he
+represents the whole scale of human emotion. He is a many-sided prism,
+and reflects back the light in all colours, no matter how you look at
+him. His pupils _adore_ him, as in fact everybody else does, but it is
+impossible to do otherwise with a person whose genius flashes out of him
+all the time so, and whose character is so winning.
+
+One day this week, when we were with Liszt, he was in such high spirits
+that it was as if he had suddenly become twenty years younger. A student
+from the Stuttgardt conservatory played a Liszt Concerto. His name is
+V., and he is dreadfully nervous. Liszt kept up a little running fire of
+satire all the time he was playing, but in a good-natured way. I
+shouldn't have minded it if it had been I. In fact, I think it would
+have inspired me; but poor V. hardly knew whether he was on his head or
+on his feet. It was too funny. Everything that Liszt says is so
+striking. For instance, in one place where V. was playing the melody
+rather feebly, Liszt suddenly took his seat at the piano and said, "When
+_I_ play, I always play for the people in the gallery [by the gallery he
+meant the cock-loft, where the rabble always sit, and where the places
+cost next to nothing], so that those persons who pay only five groschens
+for their seat also hear something." Then he began, and I wish you could
+have heard him! The sound didn't seem to be very _loud_, but it was
+penetrating and far-reaching. When he had finished, he raised one hand
+in the air, and you seemed to see all the people in the gallery drinking
+in the sound. That is the way Liszt teaches you. He presents an _idea_
+to you, and it takes fast hold of your mind and sticks there. Music is
+such a real, visible thing to him, that he always has a symbol,
+instantly, in the material world to express his idea. One day, when I
+was playing, I made too much movement with my hand in a rotatory sort of
+a passage where it was difficult to avoid it. "Keep your hand still,
+Fräulein," said Liszt; "_don't make omelette_." I couldn't help
+laughing, it hit me on the head so nicely. He is far too sparing of his
+playing, unfortunately, and, like Tausig, only sits down and plays a few
+bars at a time, generally. It is dreadful when he stops, just as you are
+at the height of your enjoyment, but he is so thoroughly _blasé_ that he
+doesn't care to show off, and doesn't like to have any one pay him a
+compliment. Even at the court it annoyed him so that the Grand Duchess
+told people to take no notice when he rose from the piano.
+
+On the same day that Liszt was in such high good-humour, a strange lady
+and her husband were there who had made a long journey to Weimar, in the
+hope of hearing him play. She waited patiently for a long time through
+the lesson, and at last Liszt took compassion on her, and sat down with
+his favourite remark that "the young ladies played a great deal better
+than he did, but he would try his best to imitate them," and then played
+something of his own so wonderfully, that when he had finished we all
+stood there like posts, feeling that there was _nothing_ to be said. But
+he, as if he feared we might burst out into eulogy, got up instantly and
+went over to a friend of his who was standing there, and who lives on an
+estate near Weimar, and said, in the most commonplace tone imaginable,
+"By the way, how about those eggs? Are you going to send me some?" It
+seems to be not only a profound bore to him, but really a sort of
+sensitiveness on his part. How he can bear to hear _us_ play, I cannot
+imagine. It must grate on his ear terribly, I think, because everything
+_must_ sound expressionless to him in comparison with his own marvellous
+conception. I assure you, no matter how beautifully we play any piece,
+the minute Liszt plays it, you would scarcely recognize it! His touch
+and his peculiar use of the pedal are two secrets of his playing, and
+then he seems to dive down in the most hidden thoughts of the composer,
+and fetch them up to the surface, so that they gleam out at you one by
+one, like stars!
+
+The more I see and hear Liszt, the more I am lost in amazement! I can
+neither eat nor sleep on those days that I go to him. All my musical
+studies till now have been a mere going to school, a preparation for
+him. I often think of what Tausig said once: "Oh, compared with Liszt,
+we other artists are all blockheads." I did not believe it at the time,
+but I've seen the truth of it, and in studying Liszt's playing, I can
+see where Tausig got many of his own wonderful peculiarities. I think he
+was the most like Liszt of all the army that have had the privilege of
+his instruction.--I began this letter on Sunday, and it is now Tuesday.
+Yesterday I went to Liszt, and found that Bülow had just arrived. None
+of the other scholars had come, for a wonder, and I was just going away,
+when Liszt came out, asked me to come in a moment, and introduced me to
+Bülow. There I was, all alone with these two great artists in Liszt's
+_salon_! Wasn't _that_ a situation? I only stayed a few minutes, of
+course, though I should have liked to spend hours, but our conversation
+was in the highest degree amusing while I _was_ there. Bülow had just
+returned from his grand concert tour, and had been in London for the
+first time. In a few months he had given one hundred and twenty
+concerts! He is a fascinating creature, too, like all these master
+artists, but entirely different from Liszt, being small, quick, and airy
+in his movements, and having one of the boldest and proudest foreheads I
+ever saw. He looks like strength of will personified. Liszt gazed at
+"his Hans," as he calls him, with the fondest pride, and seemed
+perfectly happy over his arrival. It was like his beautiful courtesy to
+call me in and introduce me to Bülow instead of letting me go away. He
+thought I had come to play to him, and was unwilling to have me take
+that trouble for nothing, though he must have wished me in Jericho. You
+would think I paid him a hundred dollars a lesson, instead of _his_
+condescending to sacrifice his valuable time to _me_ for nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+     Liszt's Expression in Playing. Liszt on Conservatories. Ordeal of
+     Liszt's Lessons. Liszt's Kindness.
+
+
+    WEIMAR, _June 19, 1873_.
+
+In Liszt I can at last say that my ideal in _something_ has been
+realized. He goes far beyond all that I expected. Anything so perfectly
+beautiful as he looks when he sits at the piano I never saw, and yet he
+is almost an old man now.[E] I enjoy him as I would an exquisite work of
+art. His personal magnetism is immense, and I can scarcely bear it when
+he plays. He can make me cry all he chooses, and that is saying a good
+deal, because I've heard so much music, and _never_ have been affected
+by it. Even Joachim, whom I think divine, never moved me. When Liszt
+plays anything pathetic, it sounds as if he had been through everything,
+and opens all one's wounds afresh. All that one has ever suffered comes
+before one again. Who was it that I heard say once, that years ago he
+saw Clara Schumann sitting in tears near the platform, during one of
+Liszt's performances?--Liszt knows well the influence he has on people,
+for he always fixes his eyes on some one of us when he plays, and I
+believe he tries to wring our hearts. When he plays a passage, and goes
+_pearling_ down the key-board, he often looks over at me and smiles, to
+see whether I am appreciating it.
+
+But I doubt if he feels any particular emotion himself, when he is
+piercing you through with his rendering. He is simply hearing every
+tone, knowing exactly what effect he wishes to produce and how to do it.
+In fact, he is practically two persons in one--the listener and the
+performer. But what immense self-command that implies! No matter how
+fast he plays you always feel that there is "plenty of time"--no need to
+be anxious! You might as well try to move one of the pyramids as fluster
+_him_. Tausig possessed this repose in a technical way, and his touch
+was marvellous; but he never drew the tears to your eyes. He could not
+wind himself through all the subtle labyrinths of the heart as Liszt
+does.
+
+Liszt does such bewitching little things! The other day, for instance,
+Fräulein Gaul was playing something to him, and in it were two runs, and
+after each run two staccato chords. She did them most beautifully, and
+struck the chords immediately after. "No, no," said Liszt, "after you
+make a run you must wait a minute before you strike the chords, as if in
+admiration of your own performance. You must pause, as if to say, 'How
+nicely I did that.'" Then he sat down and made a run himself, waited a
+second, and then struck the two chords in the treble, saying as he did
+so "Bra-_vo_," and then he played again, struck the other chord, and
+said again "Bra-_vo_," and positively, it was as if the piano had softly
+applauded! That is the way he plays everything. It seems as if the piano
+were speaking with a _human_ tongue.
+
+Our class has swelled to about a dozen persons now, and a good many
+others come and play to him once or twice and then go. As I wrote to L.
+the other day, that dear little scholar of Henselt, Fräulein Kahrer, was
+one, but she only stayed three days. She was a most interesting little
+creature, and told some funny stories about Henselt, who she says has a
+most violent temper, and is very severe. She said that one day he was
+giving a lesson to Princess Katherina (whoever that is), and he was so
+enraged over her playing that he snatched away the music, and dashed it
+to the ground. The Princess, however, did not lose her equanimity, but
+folded her arms and said, "Who shall pick it up?" And he had to bend and
+restore it to its place.
+
+I've never seen Liszt look angry but once, but then he was terrific.
+Like a lion! It was one day when a student from the Stuttgardt
+conservatory attempted to play the Sonata Appassionata. He had a good
+deal of technique, and a moderately good conception of it, but still he
+was totally inadequate to the work--and indeed, only a _mighty_ artist
+like Tausig or Bülow ought to attempt to play it. It was a hot
+afternoon, and the clouds had been gathering for a storm. As the
+Stuttgardter played the opening notes of the sonata, the tree-tops
+suddenly waved wildly, and a low growl of thunder was heard muttering in
+the distance. "Ah," said Liszt, who was standing at the window, with his
+delicate quickness of perception, "a fitting accompaniment." (You know
+Beethoven wrote the Appassionata one night when he was caught in a
+thunder-storm.) If Liszt had only played it himself, the whole thing
+would have been like a poem. But he walked up and down the room and
+forced himself to listen, though he could scarcely bear it, I could see.
+A few times he pushed the student aside and played a few bars himself,
+and we saw the passion leap up into his face like a glare of sheet
+lightning. Anything so magnificent as it was, the little that he _did_
+play, and the startling individuality of his conception, I never heard
+or imagined. I felt as if I did not know whether I were "in the body or
+out of the body."--GLORIOUS BEING! He is a two-edged sword that cuts
+through everything.
+
+The Stuttgardter made some such glaring mistakes, not in the notes, but
+in rhythm, etc., that at last Liszt burst out with, "You come from
+Stuttgardt, and play like _that_!" and then he went on in a tirade
+against conservatories and teachers in general. He was like a
+thunder-storm himself. He frowned, and bent his head, and his long hair
+fell over his face, while the poor Stuttgardter sat there like a beaten
+hound. Oh, it was awful! If it had been I, I think I should have
+withered entirely away, for Liszt is always so amiable that the contrast
+was all the stronger.--"_Aber das geht Sie nichts an_ (But this does not
+concern you)," said he, in a conciliatory tone, suddenly stopping
+himself and smiling. "_Spielen Sie weiter_ (Play on)."--He meant that it
+was not at the student but at the conservatories that he had been angry.
+
+Liszt hasn't the nervous irritability common to artists, but on the
+contrary his disposition is the most exquisite and tranquil in the
+world. We have been there incessantly, and I've never seen him ruffled
+except two or three times, and then he was tired and not himself, and it
+was a most transient thing. When I think what a little savage Tausig
+often was, and how cuttingly sarcastic Kullak could be at times, I am
+astonished that Liszt so rarely loses his temper. He has the power of
+turning the best side of every one outward, and also the most marvellous
+and instant appreciation of what that side is. If there is _anything_ in
+you, you may be sure that Liszt will know it. Whether he chooses to let
+you think he does, may, however, be another matter.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _July 15, 1873_.
+
+Liszt is such an immense, inspiring force that one has to try and stride
+forward with him at double rate, even if with double expenditure, too!
+To-day I'm more dead than alive, as we had a lesson from him yesterday
+that lasted four hours. There were twenty artists present, all of whom
+were anxious to play, and as he was in high good-humour, he played ever
+so much himself in between. It was perfectly magnificent, but exhausting
+and exciting to the last degree. When I come home from the lessons I
+fling myself on the sofa, and feel as if I never wanted to get up again.
+It is a fearful day's work every time I go to him. First, four hours'
+practice in the morning. Then a nervous, anxious feeling that takes away
+my appetite, and prevents me from eating my dinner. And then several
+hours at Liszt's, where one succession of concertos, fantasias, and all
+sorts of tremendous things are played. You never know before whom you
+must play there, for it is the musical headquarters of the world.
+Directors of conservatories, composers, artists, aristocrats, all come
+in, and you have to bear the brunt of it as best you can. The first
+month I was here, when there were only five of us, it was quite another
+matter, but now the room is crowded every time.
+
+Liszt gave a matinee the other day at which I played a "Soirée de
+Vienne," by Tausig--awfully hard, but very brilliant and peculiar. I
+don't know how I ever got through it, for I had only been studying it a
+few days, and didn't even know it by heart, nor had I played it to
+Liszt. He only told me the evening before, too, about eight
+o'clock--"To-morrow I give a matinee; bring your Soirée de Vienne." I
+rushed home and practiced till ten, and then I got up early the next
+morning and practiced a few hours. The matinee was at eleven o'clock.
+First, Liszt played himself, then a young lady sang several songs, then
+there was a piece for piano and flute played by Liszt and a flutist, and
+then I came. I was just as frightened as I could be! Metzdorf (my
+Russian friend) and Urspruch sat down by me to give me courage, and to
+turn the leaves, but Liszt insisted upon turning himself, and stood
+behind me and did it in his dexterous way. He says it is an art to turn
+the leaves properly! He was _so_ kind, and whenever I did anything well
+he would call out "_charmant!_" to encourage me. It is considered a
+great compliment to be asked to play at a matinee, and I don't know why
+Liszt paid it to me at the expense of others who were there who play far
+better than I do--among them a young lady from Norway, lately come, who
+is a most _superb_ pianist. She was a pupil of Kullak's, too, but it is
+four years since she left him, and she has been concertizing a good
+deal. Yesterday she played Schumann's A minor concerto magnificently. I
+was surprised that Liszt had not selected her, but one can never tell
+what to expect from Liszt. With him "nothing is to be presumed on or
+despaired of"--as the proverb says. He is so full of moods and phases
+that you have to have a very sharp perception even to begin to
+understand him, and he can cut you all up fine without your ever
+guessing it. He rarely mortifies any one by an open snub, but what is
+perhaps worse, he manages to let the rest of the class know what he is
+thinking while the poor victim remains quite in darkness about it!--Yes,
+he can do very cruel things.
+
+After all, though, people generally have their own assurance to thank,
+or their own want of tact, when they do not get on with Liszt. If they
+go to him full of themselves, or expecting to make an impression on
+_him_, or merely for the sake of saying they have been with him, instead
+of presenting themselves to sit at his feet in humility, as they ought,
+and learn whatever he is willing to impart--he soon finds it out, and
+treats them accordingly. Some one once asked Liszt, what he would have
+been had he not been a musician. "The first diplomat in Europe," was the
+reply. With this Machiavellian bent it is not surprising that he
+sometimes indulges himself in playing off the conceited or the obtuse
+for the benefit of the bystanders. But the real _basis_ of his nature is
+compassion. _The bruised reed he does not break, nor the humble and
+docile heart despise!_
+
+Fräulein Gaul tells a characteristic story about the "Meister," as we
+call Liszt. When she first came to him a year or two ago, she brought
+him one day Chopin's B flat minor Scherzo--one of those stock pieces
+that every artist _must_ learn, and that has also been thrummed to death
+by countless tyros. Liszt looked at it, and to her fright and dismay
+cried out in a fit of impatience, "No, I _won't_ hear it!" and dashed it
+angrily into the corner. The next day he went to see her, apologized for
+his outburst of temper, and said that as a penance for it he would force
+himself to give her not one, but two or three lessons on the Scherzo,
+and in the most minute and careful manner--which accordingly he did!
+Fancy any music teacher you ever heard of, so humbling himself to a
+little girl of fifteen, and then remember that Tausig, the greatest of
+modern virtuosi, said of Liszt, "No mortal can measure himself with
+Liszt. He dwells upon a solitary height."
+
+But you need not fear that I am "giving up American standards" because I
+reverence Liszt so boundlessly. Everything is topsy-turvy in Europe
+according to _our_ moral ideas, and they don't have what we call "men"
+over here. But they _do_ have artists that we cannot approach! It is as
+a Master in Art that I look at and write of Liszt, and his mere presence
+is to his pupils such stimulus and joy, that when I leave _him_ I shall
+feel I have left the best part of my life behind!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     Liszt's Compositions. His Playing and Teaching of Beethoven. His
+     "Effects" in Piano-playing. Excursion to Jena. A New Music Master.
+
+
+    WEIMAR, _July 24, 1873_.
+
+Liszt is going away to-day. He was to have left several days ago, but
+the Emperor of Austria or Russia (I don't know which), came to visit the
+Grand Duke, and of course Liszt was obliged to be on hand and to spend a
+day with them. He is such a grandee himself that kings and emperors are
+quite matters of course to him. Never was a man so courted and spoiled
+as he! The Grand Duchess herself frequently visits him. But he never
+allows anyone to ask him to play, and even she doesn't venture it. That
+is the only point in which one sees Liszt's sense of his own greatness;
+otherwise his manner is remarkably unassuming.
+
+Liszt will be gone until the middle of August, and I shall be thankful
+to have a few weeks of repose, and to be able to study more quietly.
+With him one is at high pressure all the time, and I have gained a good
+many more ideas from him than I can work up in a hurry. In fact, Liszt
+has revealed to me an entirely new idea of piano-playing. He is a
+wonderful _composer_, by the way, and that is what I was unprepared for
+in him. His oratorio of _Christus_ was brought out here this summer, and
+many strangers and celebrities came to hear it, Wagner among others. It
+was magnificent, and one of the noblest, and decidedly the grandest
+oratorio that I ever heard. I've never had time to write home about it,
+for I felt that it required a dissertation in itself to do it justice. I
+wish it could be performed in Boston, for his orchestral and choral
+works, I am sorry to say, make their way very slowly in Germany. "Liszt
+helped Wagner," said he to me, sadly, "but who will help Liszt? though,
+compared with Opera it is as much harder for Oratorio to conquer a place
+as it is for a pianist to achieve success when compared to a singer." So
+he feels as if things were against him, though his heart and soul are so
+bound up in sacred music, that he told me it had become to him "the only
+thing worth living for." He really seems to care almost nothing for his
+piano-playing or for his piano compositions.
+
+And yet, what beauty is there in those compositions! In Berlin I had
+always been taught that Liszt was a would-be composer, that he could not
+write a melody, that he had no originality, and that his compositions
+were merely glitter to dazzle the eyes of the public. How unjust and
+untrue have I found all these assertions to be! Here I have an
+opportunity of hearing his piano works _en masse_, and day by day (since
+all the young artists are playing them), and my previous ideas have been
+entirely reversed. If Liszt is _anything_, he is _original_. One can see
+that at a glance, simply by imagining his music taken out. Where is
+there anything that would fill its place? When artists wish to make an
+"effect" and stir up the public--"to fuse the leaden thousands," as
+Chopin expressed it--what do they play? LISZT!--Not only is his music
+brilliant--not only does he pour this wealth of pearls and diamonds down
+the key-board, but his pieces rise to great climaxes, are grandiose in
+style, overleap all boundaries, and whirl you away with the vehemence of
+passion. Then what lightness of touch in the lesser _morceaux_, where he
+is often the acme of tenderness, grace and fairy-like sportiveness,
+while in the melancholy ones, what subtle feeling after the emotions
+curled up in the remote corners of the heart! They are so rich in
+harmony, so weird, so wild, that when you hear them you are like a
+sea-weed cast upon the bosom of the ocean. And then what could be more
+deep and poetic than Liszt's transcriptions of Schubert's and Wagner's
+songs? They are altogether exquisite. Finally, Liszt's compositions
+stand the severest test of merit. They _wear_ well. You can play them a
+long time and never weary of them. In short, they embrace every element
+_except_ the classic, and the question is, whether these airy or intense
+ideas that appeal to you through their veils of shimmer and sheen are
+not a sort of classics in their own way!
+
+Liszt's Christus is arranged for piano for four hands, and I wish I had
+it, and also Bülow's great edition of Beethoven's sonatas--Oh! you
+cannot _conceive_ anything like Liszt's playing of Beethoven. When _he_
+plays a sonata it is as if the composition rose from the dead and stood
+transfigured before you. You ask yourself, "Did _I_ ever play that?" But
+it bores him so dreadfully to hear the sonatas, that though I've heard
+him teach a good many, I haven't had the courage to bring him one. I
+suppose he is sick of the sound of them, or perhaps it is because he
+feels obliged to be conscientious in teaching Beethoven!
+
+When one of the young pianists brings Liszt a sonata, he puts on an
+expression of resignation and generally begins a half protest which he
+afterward thinks better of.--"Well, go on," he will say, and then he
+proceeds to be very strict. He always teaches Beethoven with notes,
+which shows how scrupulous he is about him, for, of course, he knows all
+the sonatas by heart. He has Bülow's edition, which he opens and lays on
+the end of the grand piano. Then as he walks up and down he can stop and
+refer to it and point out passages, as they are being played, to the
+rest of the class. Bülow probably got many of his ideas from Liszt. One
+day when Mr. Orth was playing the Allegro of the Sonata Op. 110, Liszt
+insisted upon having it done in a particular way, and made him go back
+and repeat it over and over again. One line of it is particularly hard.
+Liszt made every one in the class sit down and try it. Most of them
+failed, which amused him.--"Ah, yes," said he, laughing, "when I once
+begin to play the pedagogue I am not to be outdone!" and then he related
+as an illustration of his "pedagogism" a little anecdote of a former
+pupil of his, now an eminent artist. "I liked young M. very much," said
+he. "He played beautifully, but he was inclined to be lazy and to take
+things easily. One morning he brought me Chopin's E minor concerto, and
+he rather skimmed over that difficult passage in the middle of the first
+movement as if he hadn't taken the trouble really to study it. His
+execution was not clean. So I thought I would give him a lesson, and I
+kept him playing those two pages over and over for an hour or two until
+he had mastered them. His arms must have been ready to break when he got
+through! At the next lesson there was no M. I sent to know why he did
+not appear. He replied that he had been out hunting and had hurt his arm
+so that he could not play. At the lesson following he accordingly
+presented himself with his arm in a sling. But I always suspected it was
+a stratagem on his part to avoid playing, and that nothing really ailed
+him. He had had enough for one while," added Liszt, with a mischievous
+smile.
+
+On Monday I had a most delightful tête-à-tête with Liszt, quite by
+chance. I had occasion to call upon him for something, and, strange to
+say, he was alone, sitting by his table and writing. Generally all sorts
+of people are up there. He insisted upon my staying a while, and we had
+the most amusing and entertaining conversation imaginable. It was the
+first time I ever heard Liszt really talk, for he contents himself
+mostly with making little jests. He is full of _esprit_. We were
+speaking of the faculty of mimicry, and he told me such a funny little
+anecdote about Chopin. He said that when he and Chopin were young
+together, somebody told him that Chopin had a remarkable talent for
+mimicry, and so he said to Chopin, "Come round to my rooms this evening
+and show off this talent of yours." So Chopin came. He had purchased a
+blonde wig ("I was very blonde at that time," said Liszt), which he put
+on, and got himself up in one of Liszt's suits. Presently an
+acquaintance of Liszt's came in, Chopin went to meet him instead of
+Liszt, and took off his voice and manner so perfectly, that the man
+actually mistook him for Liszt, and made an appointment with him for the
+next day--"and there I was in the room," said Liszt. Wasn't that
+remarkable?
+
+Another evening I was there about twilight and Liszt sat at the piano
+looking through a new oratorio, which had just come out in Paris upon
+"Christus," the same subject that his own oratorio was on. He asked me
+to turn for him, and evidently was not interested, for he would skip
+whole pages and begin again, here and there. There was only a single
+lamp, and _that_ rather a dim one, so that the room was all in shadow,
+and Liszt wore his Merlin-like aspect. I asked him to tell me how he
+produced a certain effect he makes in his arrangement of the ballad in
+Wagner's _Flying Dutchman_. He looked very "_fin_" as the French say,
+but did not reply. He never gives a direct answer to a direct question.
+"Ah," said I, "you won't tell." He smiled, and then immediately played
+the passage. It was a long arpeggio, and the effect he made was, as I
+had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the pedal down throughout, and
+played the beginning of the passage in a grand _rolling_ sort of manner,
+and then all the rest of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so
+lightly, that the continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the
+notes seemed to be just _strewn_ in, as if you broke a wreath of flowers
+and scattered them according to your fancy. It is a most striking and
+beautiful effect, and I told him I didn't see how he ever thought of it.
+"Oh, I've invented a great many things," said he,
+indifferently--"_this_, for instance,"--and he began playing a double
+roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the piano. It was very
+grand, and made the room reverberate. "Magnificent," said I. "Did you
+ever hear me do a storm?" said he. "No." "Ah, you ought to hear me do a
+storm! Storms are my _forte_!" Then to himself between his teeth, while
+a weird look came into his eyes as if he could indeed rule the blast,
+"_Da_ KRACHEN _die Bäume_ (Then _crash_ the trees!)"
+
+How ardently I wished he _would_ "play a storm," but of course he
+_didn't_, and he presently began to trifle over the keys in his _blasé_
+style. I suppose he couldn't quite work himself up to the effort, but
+that look and tone told how Liszt _would_ do it.--Alas, that we poor
+mortals here below should share so often the fate of Moses, and have
+only a glimpse of the Promised Land, and that without the consolation of
+being Moses! But perhaps, after all, the vision is better than the
+reality. We see the _whole land_, even if but at a distance, instead of
+being limited merely to the spot where our foot treads.
+
+Once again I saw Liszt in a similar mood, though his expression was this
+time _comfortably_ rather than _wildly_ destructive. It was when
+Fräulein Remmertz was playing his E flat concerto to him. There were two
+grand pianos in the room, and she was sitting at one, and he at the
+other, accompanying and interpolating as he felt disposed. Finally they
+came to a place where there were a series of passages beginning with
+both hands in the middle of the piano, and going in opposite directions
+to the ends of the key-board, ending each time in a short, sharp chord.
+"_Alles zum Fenster hinaus werfen_ (Pitch everything out of the
+window)," said he, in a cozy, easy sort of way, and he began playing
+these passages and giving every chord a whack as if he _were_ splitting
+everything up and flinging it out, and that with such enjoyment, that
+you felt as if you'd like to bear a hand, too, in the work of general
+demolition! But I never shall forget Liszt's look as he so lazily
+proposed to "pitch everything out of the window." It reminded me of the
+expression of a big tabby-cat as it sits and purrs away, blinking its
+eyes and seemingly half asleep, when suddenly--!--! out it strikes with
+both its claws, and woe be to whatever is within its reach! Perhaps,
+after all, the secret of Liszt's fascination is this power of intense
+and wild emotion that you feel he possesses, together with the most
+perfect control over it.
+
+Liszt sometimes strikes wrong notes when he plays, but it does not
+trouble him in the least. On the contrary, he rather enjoys it. He
+reminds me of one of the cabinet ministers in Berlin, of whom it is said
+that he has an amazing talent for making blunders, but a still more
+amazing one for getting out of them and covering them up. Of Liszt the
+first part of this is not true, for if he strikes a wrong note it is
+simply because he chooses to be careless. But the last part of it
+applies to him eminently. It always amuses him instead of disconcerting
+him when he comes down squarely _wrong_, as it affords him an
+opportunity of displaying his ingenuity and giving things such a turn
+that the false note will appear simply a key leading to new and
+unexpected beauties. An accident of this kind happened to him in one of
+the Sunday matinees, when the room was full of distinguished people and
+of his pupils. He was rolling up the piano in arpeggios in a very grand
+manner indeed, when he struck a semi-tone short of the high note upon
+which he had intended to end. I caught my breath and wondered whether he
+was going to leave us like that, in mid-air, as it were, and the harmony
+unresolved, or whether he would be reduced to the humiliation of
+correcting himself like ordinary mortals, and taking the right chord. A
+half smile came over his face, as much as to say--"Don't fancy that
+_this_ little thing disturbs me,"--and he instantly went meandering down
+the piano in harmony with the false note he had struck, and then rolled
+deliberately up in a second grand sweep, _this_ time striking true. I
+never saw a more delicious piece of cleverness. It was so quick-witted
+and so exactly characteristic of Liszt. Instead of giving you a chance
+to say, "He has made a mistake," he forced you to say, "He has shown how
+to get out of a mistake."
+
+Another day I heard him pass from one piece into another by making the
+finale of the first one play the part of prelude to the second. So
+exquisitely were the two woven together that you could hardly tell where
+the one left off and the other began.--Ah me! _Such_ a facile grace!
+_Nobody_ will ever equal him, with those rolling basses and those
+flowery trebles. And then his Adagios! When you hear him in one of
+_those_, you feel that his playing has got to that point when it is
+purified from all earthly dross and is an exhalation of the soul that
+mounts straight to heaven.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _August 8, 1873_.
+
+The other day we all made an excursion to Jena, which is about three
+hours' drive from here. We went in carriages in a long train, and pulled
+up at a hotel named The Bear. There we took our second breakfast. There
+was to be a concert at five in a church, where some of Liszt's music was
+to be performed. After breakfast we went to the church, where Liszt met
+us, and the rehearsal took place. After the rehearsal we went to dinner.
+We had three long tables which Liszt arranged to suit himself, his own
+place being in the middle. He always manages every little detail with
+the greatest tact, and is very particular never to let two ladies or two
+gentlemen sit together, but always alternately a lady and a gentleman.
+"_Immer eine bunte Reihe machen_ (Always have a little variety)," said
+he. The dinner was a very entertaining one to me, because I could
+converse with Liszt and hear all he said, as he was nearly opposite me.
+I was in very high spirits that day, and as Kellerman, Bendix and
+Urspruch were all near me, too, we had endless fun. We had new potatoes
+for dinner, boiled with their skins on, and Liszt threw one at me, and I
+caught it. There was another young artist there from Brussels named
+Gurickx, whom I didn't know, because he spoke only French, and as I do
+not speak it, we had never exchanged words in the class. I wasn't paying
+any attention to him, therefore, when suddenly my left-hand neighbour
+touched my arm. I looked round and he handed me a flower made of bread
+"from Monsieur Gurickx." I wish you could have seen it! It had the
+effect of a tube rose. Every little leaf and petal was as delicately
+turned as if nature herself had done it. The bread was fresh, and
+Gurickx had worked it between his fingers to the consistency of clay,
+and then modelled these little flowers which he stuck on to a stem. It
+was so artistically done, and it was such a dainty little thing to do,
+that I saw at once that he was interesting and that he possessed that
+marvellous French taste.
+
+Since then we have become very good friends, and he is teaching me to
+speak French. He plays beautifully, and was trained in the famous
+Brussels conservatory, of which Dupont is the head. Servais also got his
+musical education there. They both advise me to go there for a year, as
+Dupont is a very great master indeed, and Brussels is the very home and
+centre of art and taste of every description--a "little Paris"--but more
+earnest, more German. Gurickx went through the art-school in Brussels as
+well as the conservatory, so that he paints as well as plays, and he had
+quite a struggle with himself to decide to which art he should devote
+himself. His style is the grandiose and fiery. Rubinstein is his model,
+and he plays Liszt's Rhapsodies as I never heard any one else. He brings
+out all their power, brilliancy and careering wildness, and makes the
+greatest sensation of them. Such tremendous sweeping chords! Liszt
+himself doesn't play the chords as well as Gurickx;--perhaps because he
+does not care now to exert the strength.
+
+But to return to Jena. After dinner Liszt said, "Now we'll go to
+Paradise." So we put on our things, and proceeded to walk along the
+river to a place called Paradise, on account of its loveliness. We
+passed the University, on one corner of which is a tablet with "W. von
+Goethe" written against the wall of the room which Goethe occupied. It
+seemed strange to me to be passing the room of my beloved Goethe, with
+our equally beloved Liszt!--This walk along the river was enchanting.
+The current was very rapid, and the willows were all blowing in the
+breeze. There is an odd triangular-shaped hill that rises on one side
+very boldly and abruptly, called the Fox's Head. The way was under a
+double row of tall trees, which met at the top and formed a green arch
+over our heads. It was all breeze and freshness, and the sunlight struck
+picturesquely aslant the hill-sides. I started to walk with Liszt, but
+he was so surrounded that it was difficult to get near him, so I walked
+instead with an interesting young artist named O., who was at once
+extraordinarily ugly and extremely clever.
+
+After our walk we went to the concert, which was lovely, and then at
+seven we were all invited to tea at the house of a friend of Liszt's. He
+was a very tall man, and he had a very tall and hospitable daughter,
+nearly as big as himself, who received us very cordially. The tea was
+all laid on tables in the garden, and the sausages were cooking over a
+fire made on the grounds. We sat down pell-mell, anywhere, I next to
+Liszt, who kept putting things on my plate. When supper was over he
+retreated to a little summer house with some of his friends, to smoke.
+We sauntered round the grass plat in front of it until Liszt called us
+to come in and sit by him, which we did until he was ready to go.
+
+I've heard of a new music master lately. When my friend Miss B. was
+here, she told me that she had met a "Herr Director Deppe" in Berlin,
+after I left, and had told him all about me and my struggle to conquer
+the piano. He seemed very much interested and said, "O, if she had only
+come to me! _I_ would have helped her," and from all I can hear I think
+he must be the man for me. He is interested in Sherwood, who used to
+talk to me about him last winter. Sherwood says he is wholly
+disinterested and devoted to art, and lives entirely in music, and that
+he is a noble-hearted man, and the "most musical person he ever met."
+Sherwood often wavers between him and Kullak, and Deppe would like to
+teach Sherwood if he could, simply out of interest for him.--Deppe has a
+pupil whom he has trained entirely himself, and whom he is going to
+bring out next winter. Sherwood says he never heard anything so
+beautiful as her playing. She is spending the summer near Deppe, and he
+hears her play the programme she is going to give in Berlin next winter,
+every day. Think what immense certainty that must give!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+     Liszt's Playing. Tausig. Excursion to Sondershausen.
+
+    WEIMAR, _August 23, 1873_.
+
+Liszt has returned from his trip, and I have played to him twice this
+week, and am to go again on Monday. He praised me very much on Tuesday,
+and said I played admirably. I knew he was pleased, because whenever he
+corrected me he would say, "_Nein, Kindchen_" in such a gentle way!
+"_Kind_" is the German for child, and "_Kindchen_" is a diminutive, and
+whenever he calls you that you can tell he has a leaning toward you.
+
+This week is the first time that I have been able to play to him without
+being nervous, or that my fingers have felt warm and natural. It has
+been a fearful ordeal, truly, to play there, for not only was Liszt
+himself present, but such a crowd of artists, all ready to pick flaws in
+your playing, and to say, "She hasn't got much talent." I am so glad
+that I stayed until Liszt's return, for now the rush is over, and he has
+much more time for those of us who are left, and plays a great deal more
+himself. Yesterday he played us a study of Paganini's, arranged by
+himself, and also his Campanella. I longed for M., as she is so fond of
+the Campanella. Liszt gave it with a velvety softness, clearness,
+brilliancy and pearliness of touch that was inimitable. And oh, his
+grace! _Nobody_ can compare with him! Everybody else sounds heavy
+beside him!
+
+However, I have felt some comfort in knowing that it is not Liszt's
+genius alone that makes him such a player. He has gone through such
+technical studies as no one else has except Tausig, perhaps. He plays
+everything under the sun in the way of _Etuden_--has played them, I
+mean. On Tuesday I got him talking about the composers who were the
+fashion when he was a young fellow in Paris--Kalkbrenner, Herz,
+etc.--and I asked him if he could not play us something by Kalkbrenner.
+"O yes! I must have a few things of Kalkbrenner's in my head still," and
+then he played part of a concerto. Afterward he went on to speak of
+Herz, and said: "I'll play you a little study of Herz's that is
+infamously hard. It is a stupid little theme," and then he played the
+theme, "but _now_ pay attention." Then he played the study itself. It
+was a most hazardous thing, where the hands kept crossing continually
+with great rapidity, and striking notes in the most difficult positions.
+It made us all laugh; and Liszt hit the notes every time, though it was
+disgustingly hard, and as he said himself, "he used to get all in a heat
+over it." He had evidently studied it so well that he could never forget
+it. He went on to speak of Moscheles and of his compositions. He said
+that when between thirty and forty years of age, Moscheles played
+superbly, but as he grew older he became too old-womanish and set in his
+ways--and then he took off Moscheles, and played his Etuden in his
+style. It was very funny. But it showed how Liszt has studied
+_everything_, and the universality of his knowledge, for he knows
+Tausig's and Rubinstein's studies as well as Kalkbrenner and Herz. There
+cannot be many persons in the world who keep up with the whole range of
+musical literature as he does.
+
+Liszt loved Tausig as his own child, and is always delighted when we
+play any of his music. His death was an awful blow to Liszt, for he used
+to say, "He will be the inheritor of my playing." I suppose he thought
+he would live again in him, for he always says, "Never did such talent
+come under my hands." I would give anything to have seen them together,
+for Tausig was a wonderfully clever and captivating man, and I can
+imagine he must have fascinated Liszt. They say he was the naughtiest
+boy that ever was heard of, and caused Liszt no end of trouble and
+vexation; but he always forgave him, and after the vexation was past
+Liszt would pat him on the head and say, "_Carlchen, entweder wirst du
+ein grosser Lump oder ein grosser Meister_ (You'll turn out either a
+great blockhead or a great master)." That is Liszt all over. He is so
+indulgent that in consideration of talent he will forgive anything.
+
+Tausig's father, who was himself a music-master, took him to Liszt when
+he was fourteen years old, hoping that Liszt would receive the little
+marvel as a pupil and protégé.
+
+But Liszt would not even hear the boy play. "I have had," he declared
+positively, "enough of child prodigies. They never come to much."
+Tausig's father apparently acquiesced in the reply, but while he and
+Liszt were drinking wine and smoking together, he managed to smuggle the
+child on to the piano-stool behind Liszt, and signed to him to begin to
+play. The little Tausig plunged into Chopin's A flat Polonaise with such
+fire and boldness that Liszt turned his eagle head, and after a few bars
+cried, "I take him!" I heard Liszt say once that he could not endure
+child prodigies. "I have no time," said he, "for these artists _die_
+WERDEN _sollen_ (that _are_ to be)!"
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _September 9, 1873_.
+
+This week has been one of great excitement in Weimar, on account of the
+wedding of the son of the Grand Duke. All sorts of things have been
+going on, and the Emperor and Empress came on from Berlin. There have
+been a great many rehearsals at the theatre of different things that
+were played, and of course Liszt took a prominent part in the
+arrangement of the music. He directed the Ninth Symphony, and played
+twice himself with orchestral accompaniments. One of the pieces he
+played was Weber's Polonaise in E major, and the other was one of his
+own Rhapsodies Hongroises. Of these I was at the rehearsal. When he came
+out on the stage the applause was tremendous, and enough in itself to
+excite and electrify one. I was enchanted to have an opportunity to hear
+Liszt as a concert player. The director of the orchestra here is a
+beautiful pianist and composer himself, as well as a splendid conductor,
+but it was easy to see that he had to get all his wits together to
+follow Liszt, who gave full rein to his imagination, and let the _tempo_
+fluctuate as he felt inclined. As for Liszt, he scarcely _looked_ at the
+keys, and it was astounding to see his hands go rushing up and down the
+piano and perform passages of the utmost rapidity and difficulty, while
+his head was turned all the while towards the orchestra, and he kept up
+a running fire of remarks with them continually. "You violins, strike in
+_sharp_ here." "You trumpets, not too loud there," etc. He did
+everything with the most immense _aplomb_, and without seeming to pay
+any attention to his hands, which moved of themselves as if they were
+independent beings and had their own brain and everything! He never did
+the same thing twice alike. If it were a scale the first time, he would
+make it in double or broken thirds the second, and so on, constantly
+surprising you with some new turn. While you were admiring the long roll
+of the wave, a sudden spray would be dashed over you, and make you catch
+your breath! No, never was there such a player! The nervous intensity of
+his touch takes right hold of you. When he had finished everybody
+shouted and clapped their hands like mad, and the orchestra kept up such
+a _fanfare_ of applause, that the din was quite overpowering. Liszt
+smiled and bowed, and walked off the stage indifferently, not giving
+himself the trouble to come back, and presently he quietly sat down in
+the parquet, and the rehearsal proceeded. The concert itself took place
+at the court, so that I did not hear it. Metzdorf was there, however,
+and he said that Liszt played fabulously, of course, but that he was
+not as inspired as he was in the morning, and did not make the same
+effect.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    WEIMAR, _September 15, 1873_.
+
+The other day an excursion was arranged to Sondershausen, a town about
+three hours' ride from Weimar in the cars. There was to be a concert
+there in honour of Liszt, and a whole programme of his music was to be
+performed. About half a dozen of the "Lisztianer"--as the Weimarese dub
+Liszt's pupils--agreed to go, I, of course, being one. Liszt himself,
+the Countess von X. and Count S. were to lead the party. The morning we
+started was one of those perfect autumnal days when it is a delight
+simply to _live_.
+
+After breakfast I hurried off to the station, where I met the others,
+everybody being in the highest spirits. Liszt and his titled friends
+travelled in a first class carriage by themselves. The rest of us went
+second class, in the next carriage behind. We were very gay indeed, and
+the time did not seem long till we arrived at Sondershausen, where we
+exchanged our seats in the cars for seats in an omnibus, and drove to
+the principal hotel. There were not sufficient accommodations for us
+all, owing to the number of strangers who had come to the festival, so
+Mrs. S. and I went to a smaller hotel in a more distant part of the town
+to engage rooms, intending to return and dine with Liszt and the rest.
+Just as our noisy vehicle clattered up to the inn and some of the
+gentlemen jumped out to arrange matters, the solemn strains of a chorale
+were heard from a church close by, with its grand and rolling organ
+accompaniment. Somehow it made me feel sad to hear it, and a sense of
+the _transitoriness_ of things came over me. It seemed like one of those
+voices from the other world that call to us now and then.
+
+After we had engaged our rooms, we drove back to the hotel where Liszt
+was staying, and where we were to dine immediately. It was in the centre
+of the town, and directly opposite the palace, which rose boldly on a
+sort of eminence with great flights of stone steps sweeping down to the
+road on each side. It looked quite imposing. An avenue wound up the hill
+to the right of it. In the dining-room of the hotel a long table was
+spread and all the places were carefully set. My place was next Count S.
+and not far from Liszt. So I was very well seated. Everybody began
+talking at once the minute dinner was served, as they always do at table
+in Germany. Toward the close of it were the usual number of toasts in
+honour of Liszt, to which he responded in rather a bored sort of way. I
+don't wonder he gets tired of them, for it is always the same thing. He
+did not seem to be in his usual spirits, and had a fatigued air.
+
+After dinner he said, "Now let us go and see Fräulein Fichtner."
+Fräulein Fichtner was the young lady who was going to play his concerto
+in A major at the concert that evening. She is a well-known pianist in
+Germany, and is both pretty and brilliant. We started in a procession,
+which is the way one always walks with Liszt. It reminds me of those
+snow-balls the boys roll up at home--the crowd gathers as it proceeds!
+When we got to the house we entered an obscure corridor and began to
+find our way up a dark and narrow staircase. Some one struck a wax
+match. "Good!" called out Liszt, in his sonorous voice. "_Leuchten Sie
+voraus_ (Light us up)." When we got to the top we pulled the bell and
+were let in by Fräulein Fichtner's mother. Fräulein Fichtner herself
+looked no ways dismayed at the number of her guests, though we had the
+air of coming to storm the house. She gaily produced all the chairs
+there were, and those who could not find a seat had to stand! She was in
+Weimar for a few days this summer. So we had all met her before, and I
+had once heard her play some duets by Schumann with Liszt, who enjoyed
+reading with "Pauline," as he calls her. It is to her that Raff has
+dedicated his exquisite "_Maerchen_ (Fairy story)." She is a sparkling
+brunette, with a face full of intelligence. They say she writes charming
+little poems and is gifted in various ways. Not to tire her for the
+concert we only stayed about twenty minutes.
+
+Going back, Liszt indulged in a little graceful _badinage_ apropos of
+the concerto. You know he has written two concertos. The one in E flat
+is much played, but this one in A very rarely. It is exceedingly
+difficult and is one of the few of his compositions that it interests
+Liszt to know that people play. "I should write it otherwise if I wrote
+it now," he explained to me as we were walking along. "Some passages are
+very troublesome (_haecklig_) to execute. I was younger and less
+experienced when I composed it," he added, with one of those
+illuminating smiles "like the flash of a dagger in the sun," as Lenz
+says.
+
+When we reached the hotel everybody went in to take a siesta--that
+"Mittags-Schlaf" which is law in Germany. I did not wish to sleep and
+felt like exploring the old town. So Count S. and I started on a walk.
+Sondershausen is a dreamy, sleepy place, with so little life about it
+that you hardly realize there are any people there at all. It is
+pleasantly situated, and gentle hills and undulations of land are all
+about it, but it seems as if the town had been dead for a long time and
+this were its grave over which one was quietly walking. We took the road
+that wound past the castle. It was embowered in trees, and behind the
+castle were gardens and conservatories. The road descended on the other
+side, and we followed it till we came unexpectedly upon a little
+circular park. Such a deserted, widowed little park it seemed! Not a
+soul did we encounter as we wandered through its paths. Bordering them
+were great quantities of berry-laden snow-berry bushes, of which I am
+very fond. The park had a sort of rank and unkempt aspect, as if it were
+abandoned to itself. The very stream that went through it flowed
+sluggishly along, and as if it hadn't any particular object in life.--I
+enjoyed it very much, and it was very restful to walk about it. One felt
+there the truth of R.'s favourite saying, "It doesn't make any
+difference. _Nothing_ makes any difference."
+
+Count S. rattled on, but I didn't hear more than half of what he said.
+He is a pleasure-loving man of the world, fond of music, but a perfect
+materialist, and untroubled by the "_souffle vers le beau_" which
+torments so many people. At the same time he is appreciative and very
+amusing, and one has no chance to indulge in melancholy with _him_. We
+sauntered about till late in the afternoon, and then returned to the
+hotel for coffee before going to the concert, which began at seven. The
+concert hall was behind the palace and seemed to form a part of it.
+Liszt, the Countess von X., and Count S. sat in a box, aristocratic-fashion.
+The rest of us were in the parquet. I was amazed at the orchestra, which
+was very large and played gloriously. It seemed to me as fine as that of
+the Gewandhaus in Leipsic, though I suppose it cannot be.--"Why has no
+one ever mentioned this orchestra to me?" I asked of Kellermann, who sat
+next, "and how is it one finds such an orchestra in such a place?" "Oh,"
+said he, "this orchestra is very celebrated, and the Prince of
+Sondershausen is a great patron of music." This is the way it is in
+Germany. Every now and then one has these surprises. You never know when
+you are going to stumble upon a jewel in the most out-of-the-way corner.
+
+We were all greatly excited over Fräulein Fichtner's playing, and it
+seemed very jolly to be behind the scenes, as it were, and to have one
+of our own number performing. We applauded tremendously when she came
+out. She was not nervous in the least, but began with great _aplomb_,
+and played most beautifully. The concerto made a generally dazzling and
+difficult impression upon me, but did not "take hold" of me
+particularly. I do not know how Liszt was pleased with her rendering of
+it, for I had no opportunity of asking him. She also played his
+Fourteenth Rhapsody with orchestral accompaniment in most bold and
+dashing style. Fräulein Fichtner is more in the bravura than in the
+sentimental line, and she has a certain breadth, grasp, and freshness.
+The last piece on the programme was Liszt's Choral Symphony, which was
+magnificent. The chorus came at the end of it, as in the Ninth Symphony.
+Mrs. S. said she was familiar with it from having heard Thomas's
+orchestra play it in New York.--That orchestra, by the way, from what I
+hear, seems to have developed into something remarkable. It is a great
+thing for the musical education of the country to have such an
+organization travelling every winter. And what a revelation is an
+orchestra the first time one hears it, even if it be but a poor
+one!--Music come bodily down from Heaven! And here in their musical
+darkness, the Americans in the provinces are having an orchestra of the
+very highest excellence burst upon them in full splendour. What _could_
+be more American? They always have the best or none!
+
+At nine o'clock in the evening the concert was over, and we all returned
+to the hotel for supper. We were all desperately hungry after so much
+music and enthusiasm. Everybody wanted to be helped at once, and the
+waiters were nearly distracted. Count S. sat next me and was very funny.
+He kept rapping the table like mad, but without any success. Finally he
+exclaimed, "_Jetzt geh'_ ICH _auf Jagd_ (Now _I'm_ going hunting)!" and
+sprang up from his chair, rushed to the other end of the dining-room,
+possessed himself of some dishes the waiters were helping, and returned
+in triumph. I couldn't help laughing, and he made a great many jokes at
+the expense of the waiters and everybody else. I could not hear any of
+Liszt's conversation, which I regretted, but he seemed in a quiet mood.
+I do not think he is the same when he is with aristocrats. He must be
+among _artists_ to unsheathe his sword. When he is with "swells," he is
+all grace and polish. He seems only to toy with his genius for their
+amusement, and he is never serious. At least this is as far as _my_
+observation of him goes on the few occasions I have seen him in the
+_beau monde_. The presence of the proud Countess von X. at Sondershausen
+kept him, as it were, at a distance from everybody else, and he was not
+overflowing with fun and gayety as he was at Jena. She, of course, did
+not go with us to see Fräulein Fichtner, which was fortunate. After
+supper one and all went to bed early, quite tired out with the day's
+excitement.
+
+This haughty Countess, by the way, has always had a great fascination
+for me, because she looks like a woman who "has a history." I have often
+seen her at Liszt's matinees, and from what I hear of her, she is such a
+type of woman as I suppose only exists in Europe, and such as the
+heroines of foreign novels are modelled upon. She is a widow, and in
+appearance is about thirty-six or eight years old, of medium height,
+slight to thinness, but exceedingly graceful. She is always attired in
+black, and is utterly careless in dress, yet nothing can conceal her
+innate elegance of figure. Her face is pallid and her hair dark. She
+makes an impression of icy coldness and at the same time of tropical
+heat. The pride of Lucifer to the world in general--entire abandonment
+to the individual. I meet her often in the park, as she walks along
+trailing her "sable garments like the night," and surrounded by her four
+beautiful boys--as Count S. says, "each handsomer than the other." They
+have such romantic faces! Dark eyes and dark curling hair. The eldest is
+about fourteen and the youngest five.
+
+The little one is too lovely, with his brown curls hanging on his
+shoulders! I never shall forget the supercilious manner in which the
+Countess took out her eye-glass and looked me over as I passed her one
+day in the park. Weimar being such a "_kleines Nest_ (little nest)," as
+Liszt calls it, every stranger is immediately remarked. She waited till
+I got close up, then deliberately put up this glass and scrutinized me
+from head to foot, then let it fall with a half-disdainful,
+half-indifferent air, as if the scrutiny did not reward the trouble.--I
+was so amused. Her arrogance piques all Weimar, and they never cease
+talking about her. I can never help wishing to see her in a fashionable
+toilet. If she is so _distinguée_ in rather less than ordinary dress,
+what _would_ she be in a Parisian costume? I mean as to grace, for she
+is not pretty.--But as a psychological study, she is more interesting,
+perhaps, as she is. She always seems to me to be gradually going to
+wreck--a burnt-out volcano, with her own ashes settling down upon her
+and covering her up. She is very highly educated, and is preparing her
+eldest son for the university herself. What a subject she would have
+been for a Balzac!
+
+We stayed over the next day in Sondershausen, as there was to be another
+orchestral concert--this time with a miscellaneous programme. Fräulein
+Fichtner had already departed, but the first violinist played
+Mendelssohn's famous concerto for violin.--Not in Wilhelmj's masterly
+style, but extremely well. We took the train for Weimar about five P. M.
+Going back I was in the carriage with Liszt. He sat opposite me, and
+gradually began to talk. The conversation turned upon Weitzmann, my
+former harmony teacher, who, you remember, was so determined to make me
+learn. Liszt remarked upon the extent of his knowledge and said, "If I
+were not so old I should like to go to school again to Weitzmann." He
+was talking to Weitzmann one day, he said, and Weitzmann proposed to him
+that he should write a canon. "I sat down and worked over it a good
+while, but finally gave it up.--I know not why, but I never had any
+success in writing canons. Weitzmann then sat down, and in half an hour
+had produced two excellent ones." He gave this as an instance of
+Weitzmann's readiness.--A canon, you know, is a sort of musical puzzle.
+The right hand plays the theme. The left hand takes it up a little later
+and imitates the right. The two interweave, and the theme forms the
+melody and the accompaniment at the same time, according as it is played
+by the right or left hand--something on the principle of singing rounds.
+The difficulty consists in avoiding monotony with this continual
+iteration of the theme, which can be brought on at different intervals,
+inverted, etc., at will. It seems to be more a mathematical than a
+musical style of composition. I should suppose that _Bach_ could fire
+off canons without end! He developed it in every imaginable
+form.--Liszt, however, is of rather a different school!
+
+We got back to Weimar about eight in the evening, and this delicious
+excursion, like all others, _had to end_. But the quiet old town, with
+its musical name and its great orchestra, will long remain in my memory.
+
+Adieu, Sondershausen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+     Farewell to Liszt! German Conservatories and their Methods. Berlin
+     Again. Liszt and Joachim.
+
+
+    WEIMAR, _September 24, 1873_.
+
+We had our last lesson from Liszt a few days ago, and he leaves Weimar
+next week. He was so hurried with engagements the last two times that he
+was not able to give us much attention. I played my Rubinstein concerto.
+He accompanied me himself on a second piano. We were there about six
+o'clock P. M. Liszt was out, but he had left word that if we came we
+were to wait. About seven he came in, and the lamps were lit. He was in
+an awful humour, and I never saw him so out of spirits. "How is it with
+our concerto?" said he to me, for he had told me the time before to send
+for the second piano accompaniment, and he would play it with me. I told
+him that unfortunately there existed no second piano part. "Then, child,
+you've fallen on your head, if you don't know that at least you must
+have a second copy of the concerto!" I told him I knew it by heart.
+"Oh!" said he, in a mollified tone. So he took my copy and played the
+orchestra part which is indicated above the piano part, and I played
+without notes. I felt inspired, for the piano I was at was a magnificent
+grand that Steinway presented to Liszt only the other day. Liszt was
+seated at another grand facing me, and the room was dimly illuminated
+by one or two lamps. A few artists were sitting about in the shadow. It
+was at the twilight hour, "_l'heure du mystère_," as the poetic Gurickx
+used to say, and in short, the occasion was perfect, and couldn't happen
+so again. You see we always have our lessons in the afternoon, and it
+was a mere chance that it was so late this time. So I felt as if I were
+in an electric state. I had studied the piece so much that I felt
+perfectly sure of it, and then with Liszt's splendid accompaniment and
+his beautiful face to look over to--it was enough to bring out
+everything there was in one. If he had only been himself I should have
+had nothing more to desire, but he was in one of his bitter, sarcastic
+moods. However, I went rushing on to the end--like a torrent plunging
+down into darkness, I might say--for it was the end, too, of my lessons
+with Liszt!
+
+In answer to your musical questions, I don't know that there is much to
+be told about conservatories of which you are not aware. The one in
+Stuttgardt is considered the best; and there the pupils are put through
+a regular graded method, beginning with learning to hold the hand, and
+with the simplest five finger exercises. There are certain things,
+studies, etc., which _all_ the scholars have to learn. That was also the
+case in Tausig's conservatory. First we had to go through Cramer, then
+through the Gradus ad Parnassum, then through Moscheles, then Chopin,
+Henselt, Liszt and Rubinstein. I haven't got farther than Chopin,
+myself, but when I went to Kullak I studied Czerny's School for
+Virtuosen a whole year, which is the book he "swears by." I'm going on
+with them this winter. It takes years to pass through them all, but when
+you _have_ finished them, you are an artist.
+
+I think myself the "Schule des Virtuosen" is indispensable, much as I
+loathe it. First, there is nothing like it for giving you a technique.
+It consists of passages, generally about two lines in length, which
+Czerny has the face to request you to play from twenty to thirty times
+successively. You can imagine at that rate how long it takes you to play
+through one page! Tedious to the _last_ degree! But it greatly equalizes
+and strengthens the fingers, and makes your execution smooth and
+elegant. It teaches you to take your time, or as the Germans call it, it
+gives you "_Ruhe_ (repose)," the _grand sine qua non_! You learn to
+"play out" your passages ("_aus-spielen_," as Kullak is always saying);
+that is, you don't hurry or blur over the last notes, but play clearly
+and in strict time to the end of the passage. I saw Lebert, the head of
+the Stuttgardt conservatory, here this summer, and had several long
+conversations with him, and he told me he considered Bach the best
+study, and put the Well-Tempered Clavichord at the foundation of
+everything. The Stuttgardters study Bach every day, and I think it a
+capital plan myself. I have begun doing it, too. It was a great thing
+for me, that quarter of Bach that I took with Mr. Paine in Cambridge,
+and was one of your inspirations, when you "builded better than you
+knew."--I never _saw_ a person with such an instinct to find out the
+right thing as you have! If it hadn't been for that, I should never
+have got so familiarized with Bach, or got into the way of studying him
+for myself, as I have done a great deal. It is as great for the fingers
+as it is "good for the soul." Lenz, in his sketch of Chopin, says that
+Chopin told him when he prepared for a concert he never studied his own
+compositions at all, but shut himself up and practiced Bach!
+
+However, I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end if one studies
+Bach, Czerny, or Gradus, only you must _keep at_ one of them all the
+while. The grand thing is to have each of your five fingers go "dum,
+dum," an equal number of times, which is the principle of all three!
+Tausig was for Gradus, you know, and practiced it himself every day. He
+used to transpose the studies in different keys, and play just the same
+in the left hand as in the right, and enhance their difficulties in
+every way, but _I_ always found them hard enough as they were written!
+Bach strengthens the fingers and makes them independent. Czerny
+equalizes them and gives an easy and elegant execution, and Gradus is
+not only good for finger technique--it trains the arm and wrist also,
+and gives a much more powerful execution.
+
+I think that in all conservatories they have at least six lessons a
+week, two solo, two in reading at sight, and two in composition. Then
+there are often lectures held on musical subjects by some of the
+Professors, or by some one who is engaged for that purpose. All large
+conservatories have an orchestra, composed generally out of the scholars
+themselves, with a few professionals hired to eke out deficiencies. With
+this the best piano scholars play their concertos once a month, or once
+in six weeks. The number of public representations varies in every
+conservatory. In the Hoch Schule in Berlin they have two yearly in the
+Sing-Akademie. Kullak _professes_ to have _one_, but he has so little
+interest in his scholars that he omits it when it suits his convenience.
+In Stuttgardt I believe they have four. I don't know much about the
+interior arrangements of Kullak's conservatory, because I only went to
+his own class. I lived too far away to attempt the theory and
+composition class. Liszt says that Kullak's pupils are always the best
+schooled of any, which rather surprised me, because there is a certain
+intimacy between him and Stuttgardt, and he always recommends scholars
+to the Stuttgardt conservatory.
+
+
+The Stuttgardters do have immense technique, and I think they are better
+taught how to study. It strikes me as if Stuttgardt were the place to
+get the machine in working order, but I rather think that Kullak trains
+the head more. There is a young American here named Orth, who studied
+two years with Kullak, then he spent a year in Stuttgardt, and now he is
+going to return to Kullak. He says he thinks that not Lebert, but
+Pruckner, is the real backbone of the Stuttgardt conservatory, but that
+even with _him_ one year is sufficient. Fräulein Gaul, on the contrary,
+with whom Lebert has taken the greatest possible pains, thinks him a
+magnificent master, and certainly he has developed her admirably. It is
+probably with him as with them all. If they take a fancy to you, they
+will do a great deal for you; if not, _nothing_! Liszt is no exception
+to this rule. I've seen him snub and entirely neglect young artists of
+the most remarkable talent and virtuosity, merely because they did not
+please him personally.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _October 8, 1873_.
+
+_Voilà!_ as Liszt always says. Here I am back again in old Berlin, and
+if I ever felt "like a cat in a strange garret," I do now. I left dear
+little Weimar two days ago, and parted from our adored Liszt a week ago
+to-day. He has gone to Rome. _Never_ did I feel leaving anybody or any
+place so much, and Berlin seems to me like a great roaring wilderness.
+The distances are so _endless_ here. You either have to kill yourself
+walking, or else spend a fortune in droschkies. The houses all seem to
+me as if they had grown. There is an immense number of new ones going up
+on all sides, and the noise, and the crowd, and the confusion are enough
+to set one distracted, after the idyllic life I've been leading. Ah,
+well! _Es war eben_ ZU _schön!_ (It was _too_ beautiful!)
+
+Yesterday and to-day I've been looking about for a new boarding-place.
+I've had two invitations to dinner since my return, but everybody and
+everything seems so dull and stupid, prosaic and tedious to me, that I
+declined them both, and haven't given any of my friends my address until
+I have had a little time to let myself down gradually from the delights
+of Weimar.
+
+Liszt was kindness itself when the time came to say good-bye, but I
+could scarcely get out a word, nor could I even thank him for all he had
+done for me. I did not wish to break down and make a scene, as I felt I
+should if I tried to say anything. So I fear he thought me rather
+ungrateful and matter-of-course, for he couldn't know that I was feeling
+an excess of emotion which kept me silent. I miss going to him
+inexpressibly, and although I heard my favourite Joachim last night,
+even _he_ paled before Liszt. He is on the violin what Liszt is on the
+piano, and is the only artist worthy to be mentioned in the same breath
+with him.
+
+Like Liszt, he so vitalizes everything that I have to take him in all
+over again every time I hear him. I am always astonished, amazed and
+delighted afresh, and even as I listen I can hardly believe that the man
+_can_ play so! But Liszt, in addition to his marvellous playing, has
+this unique and imposing personality, whereas at first Joachim is not
+specially striking. Liszt's face is all a play of feature, a glow of
+fancy, a blaze of imagination, whereas Joachim is absorbed in his
+violin, and his face has only an expression of fine discrimination and
+of intense solicitude to produce his artistic effects. Liszt never looks
+at his instrument; Joachim never looks at anything else. Liszt is a
+complete actor who intends to carry away the public, who never forgets
+that he is before it, and who behaves accordingly. Joachim is totally
+oblivious of it. Liszt subdues the people to him by the very way he
+walks on to the stage. He gives his proud head a toss, throws an
+electric look out of his eagle eye, and seats himself with an air as
+much as to say, "Now I am going to do just what I please with you, and
+you are nothing but puppets subject to my will." He said to us in the
+class one day, "When you come out on the stage, look as if you didn't
+care a rap for the audience, and as if you knew more than any of them.
+That's the way I used to do.--Didn't that provoke the critics though!"
+he added, with an ineffable look of malicious mischief. So you see his
+principle, and that was precisely the way he did at the rehearsal in the
+theatre at Weimar that I wrote to you about. Joachim, on the contrary,
+is the quiet gentleman-artist. He advances in the most unpretentious
+way, but as he adjusts his violin he looks his audience over with the
+calm air of a musical monarch, as much as to say, "I repose wholly on my
+art, and I've no need of any 'ways or manners.'" In reality I admire
+Joachim's principle the most, but there is something indescribably
+fascinating and subduing about Liszt's willfulness. You feel at once
+that he is a great genius, and that you _are_ nothing but his puppet,
+and somehow you take a base delight in the humiliation! The two men are
+intensely interesting, each in his own way, but they are extremes.
+
+[Beside his playing and his compositions, what Liszt has done for music
+and for musicians, and why, therefore, he stands so pre-eminently the
+greatest and the best beloved master in the musical world, may appear to
+the general reader in the following extract taken from a translation in
+_Dwight's Journal_, Oct. 23, 1880, of "Franz Liszt, a Musical Character
+Portrait" by La Mara, in the _Gartenlaube_: "We must count it among the
+exceptional merits of Liszt, that he has paved the way to recognition
+for innumerable aspirants, as he always shows an open heart and open
+hands to all artistic strivings. He was the first and most active
+furtherer of the immense Bayreuth enterprise, and the chief founder of
+the Musical Societies or Unions that flourish throughout Germany. And
+for how many noble and philanthropic objects has he not exerted his
+artistic resources! If, during his earlier virtuoso career, he made his
+genius serve the advantage of others far more than his own--saving out
+of the millions that he earned only a modest sum for himself, while he
+alone contributed many thousands for the completion of Cologne
+Cathedral, for the Beethoven monument at Bonn, and for the victims of
+the Hamburg conflagration--so since the close of his career as a pianist
+his public artistic activity has been exclusively consecrated to the
+benefit of others, to artistic undertakings, or to charitable objects.
+Since the end of 1847, not a penny has come into his own pocket either
+through piano-playing and conducting, or through teaching. All this,
+which has yielded such rich capital and interest to others, has cost
+only sacrifice of time and money to himself."]--ED.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+     Kullak as a Teacher. The Four Great Virtuosi, Clara Schumann,
+     Rubinstein, Von Bülow, and Tausig.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _November 7, 1873_.
+
+I've been in a sort of mental apathy since I got back--the result, I
+suppose, of so much artistic excitement all summer. Of course I am
+practicing very hard, and I am taking private lessons of Kullak again. I
+played him my Rubinstein concerto two weeks ago and told him I wanted to
+play it in a concert. He says I need more power in it in many places,
+and by practicing it every day I hope I shall at last work up to it, as
+I've conquered the technical difficulties in it. There were two pages in
+it I thought I never _could_ master. It is the same with all concertos.
+They are fearfully difficult things to play, and far more difficult, _I_
+think, than solos are, because the effort is so sustained. They are to
+me the most interesting things to listen to of all, and I can't imagine
+how you can think that piano and orchestra are "not made to go
+together." However, I never myself appreciated concertos until I came to
+Germany. Kullak is the most awfully discouraging teacher that can be
+imagined. When you play to him, it is like looking at your skin through
+a magnifying glass. All your faults seem to start out and glare at you.
+I don't think, though, that I ever fairly do myself justice when I play
+to him, because he has a sort of benumbing effect on me, and I feel to
+him something the way that Owen did to old Peter in Hawthorne's story of
+"The Artist of the Beautiful." I can't help acknowledging the truth of
+his observations even when I am wincing under them, and I yet feel at
+the same time that he does not wholly get at the soul of the thing.
+Kullak is _so_ pedantic! He _never_ overlooks a technical imperfection,
+and he ties you down to the technique so that you never can give rein to
+your imagination. He sits at the other piano, and just as you are
+rushing off he will strike in himself and say, "Don't hurry, Fräulein,"
+or something like that, and then you begin to think about holding back
+your fingers and playing every note even, etc. Now I never expect to get
+that perfection of technique that all these artists have who have been
+training throughout their childhood while their hand was forming.
+Kullak's own technique is magnificent, but now that I've graduated, as
+it were, he ought to let me play my own way, and not expect me to play
+as _he_ does, and then I could produce my own effects. That is just the
+difference between him and Liszt. Liszt's grand principle is, to leave
+you your freedom, and when you play to him, you feel like a Pegasus
+caracoling about in the air. When you play to Kullak, you feel as if
+your wings were suddenly clipped, and as if you were put into harness to
+draw an express wagon! However, I don't think it would be well to go to
+Liszt without having been through such a training first, for you want to
+know what you are about when you study with _him_. You must have a good
+solid _basis_ upon which to raise his airy super-structures. Kullak I
+regard as the basis.
+
+You ask me in your letter to write you a comparison--a summing
+up--between Clara Schumann, Bülow, Tausig and Rubinstein, but I don't
+find it very easy to do, as they are all so different. Clara Schumann is
+entirely a classic player. Beethoven's sonatas, and Bach, too, she plays
+splendidly; but she doesn't seem to me to have any _finesse_, or much
+poetry in her playing. There's nothing subtle in her conception. She has
+a great deal of fire, and her whole style is grand, finished, perfectly
+rounded off, solid and satisfactory--what the Germans call _gediegen_.
+She is a _healthy_ artist to listen to, but there is nothing of the
+analytic, no Balzac or Hawthorne about her. Beethoven's Variations in C
+minor are, perhaps, the best performance I ever heard from her, and they
+are immensely difficult, too; I thought she did them better than Bülow,
+in spite of Bülow's being such a great Beethovenite. I think she repeats
+the same pieces a good deal, possibly because she finds the modern
+fashion of playing everything without notes very trying. I've even heard
+that she cries over the necessity of doing it; and certainly it is a
+foolish thing to make a point of, with so very great an artist as Clara
+Schumann.--If people could _only_ be allowed to have their own
+individuality!
+
+Bülow's playing is more many-sided, and is chiefly distinguished by its
+great vigor; there is no end to his nervous energy, and the more he
+plays, the more the interest increases. He is my favourite of the four.
+But he plays Chopin just as well as he does Beethoven, and Schumann,
+too. Altogether he is a superlative pianist, though by no means unerring
+in his performance. I've heard him get dreadfully mixed up. I think he
+trusts _too_ much to his memory, and that he does not prepare
+sufficiently. He plays everything by heart, and such programmes! He
+always hits the nail plump on the head, and such a grasp as he has! His
+chords take firm hold of you. For instance, in the beginning of the two
+last movements of the Moonlight Sonata, you should hear him run up that
+arpeggio in the right hand so lightly and pianissimo, every note so
+delicately articulated, and then _crash-smash_ on those two chords on
+the top! And when he plays Bach's gavottes, gigues, etc., in the English
+Suites, a laughing, roguish look comes over his face, and he puts the
+most indescribable drollery and originality into them. You see that "he
+sees the point" so well, and that makes _you_ see it, too. Yes, it is
+good fun to hear Bülow do these things.--Perhaps the best summing up of
+his peculiar greatness would be to say that he impresses you as using
+the instrument only to express ideas. With him you forget all about the
+piano, and are absorbed only in the thought or the passion of the piece.
+
+Rubinstein you've heard. Most people put him next to Liszt. Your finding
+him cold surprised me, for if there is a thing he is celebrated here
+for, it is the fire and passion of his playing, and for his imagination
+and spontaneity. I think that Tausig, Bülow, and Clara Schumann, all
+three, have it all cut and dried beforehand, how they are going to play
+a piece, but Rubinstein creates at the instant. He plays without _plan_.
+Probably the afternoon you heard him he did not feel in the mood, and
+so was not at his best. As a composer he far outranks the other three.
+
+Tausig resembled Liszt more in that subtlety which Liszt has, and
+consequently he was a better Chopin player than anybody else except
+Liszt. I never shall forget his playing of Chopin's great Ballade in G
+minor the very first time I heard him in concert. It is a divine
+composition, and his rendering of it was not only all warmth and
+fervour; it was also so wonderfully poetic that it fairly cast a spell
+upon the audience, and a minute or two went by before they could begin
+to applaud. It was like a dream of beauty suspended in the air before
+you--floating there--and you didn't want to disturb it. Tausig had an
+intense love for Chopin, and always wished he could have known him. I
+think that he had more virtuosity, and yet more delicacy of feeling,
+than either Rubinstein or Bülow. His finish, perfection, and above all
+his touch, were above anything. But, except in Chopin, he was cold, at
+least in the concert room. In the conservatory he seemed to be a very
+passionate player; but, somehow, in public that was not the case.
+Unfortunately, I had studied so little at that time, that I don't feel
+as if I were competent to judge him. He was Liszt's favourite, and Liszt
+said, "He will be the inheritor of my playing;" but I doubt if this
+would have been, for the winter before Tausig died, Kullak remarked to
+me that his playing became more and more "dry" every year, probably on
+account of his morbid aversion to "Spectakel," as he called it; whereas
+Liszt gives the reins to the emotions always.
+
+When I was in Weimar I heard a great deal about Tausig's _escapades_
+when he was studying there as a boy. They say he was awfully wild and
+reckless at that time, and Liszt paid his debts over and over again.
+Sometimes in aristocratic parties, when Liszt did not feel like playing
+himself, he would tell Tausig to play, and perhaps Tausig would not feel
+like it, either. He had the most enormous strength in his fingers,
+though his hands were small, and he would go to the piano and pretend he
+was going to play, and strike the first chords with such a crash that
+three or four strings would snap almost immediately, and then, of
+course, the piano was used up for the evening!
+
+Tausig's father once procured him a splendid grand piano from Leipsic,
+and shortly after, Tausig whittled off the corners of all the keys, so
+as to make them more difficult to strike, and his father had to pay a
+large sum to have them repaired. Another time he was presented with a
+set of chess-men, and the next day some one on visiting him observed the
+pieces all lying about the floor. "Why, Tausig, what has happened to
+your chess-men?" "Oh, I wanted to see if they were easily broken, so I
+knocked up the board." He seemed to be possessed with a spirit of
+destruction. Gottschal told me that one time when Tausig was "hard up"
+for money, he sold the score of Liszt's Faust for five thalers to a
+servant, along with a great pile of his own notes. The servant disposed
+of them to some waste-paper man, and Gottschal, accidentally hearing of
+it, went to the man and purchased them. Then he went to Liszt to tell
+him that he had the score. As it happened the publisher had written for
+it that very day and Liszt was turning the house upside down, looking
+for it everywhere.
+
+At that time he was living in an immense house on a hill here, that they
+call the Altenburg. Liszt occupied the first floor, a princely friend
+the second, and the top story was one grand ball-room in which were
+generally nine grand pianos standing. They used to give the most
+magnificent entertainments, and Liszt spent thirty thousand thalers a
+year. He lived like a prince in those days--very different from his
+present simplicity. Well, he was in an awful state of mind because his
+score was nowhere to be found. "A whole year's labor lost!" he cried,
+and he was in such a rage, that when Gottschal asked him for the third
+time what he was looking for, he turned and stamped his foot at him and
+said, "You confounded fellow, can't you leave me in peace, and not
+torment me with your stupid questions?" Gottschal knew perfectly well
+what was wanting, but he wished to have a little fun out of the matter.
+At last he took pity on Liszt, and said, "Herr Doctor, _I_ know what
+you've lost. It is the score to your Faust." "Oh," said Liszt, changing
+his tone immediately, "do you know anything of it?" "Of course I do,"
+said Gottschal, and proceeded to unfold Master Tausig's performance, and
+how he had rescued the precious music. Liszt was transported with joy
+that it was found, and called up-stairs, "Carolina, Carolina, we're
+saved! Gottschal has rescued us;" and then Gottschal said that Liszt
+embraced him in his transport, and could not say or do enough to make up
+for his having been so rude to him. Well, you would have supposed that
+it was now all up with Master Tausig; but not at all. A few days
+afterward was Tausig's birthday, and Carolina took Gottschal aside, and
+begged him to drop the subject of the note stealing, for Liszt doted so
+on his Carl that he wished to forget it. Sure enough, Liszt kissed Carl
+and congratulated him on his birthday, and consoled himself with his
+same old observation, "You'll either turn out a great blockhead, my
+little Carl, or a great master."
+
+Tausig had a great ambition to be a composer, and in his early youth he
+published a number of compositions. Later on he became intensely
+critical of his own work, and finally bought up all the copies he could
+lay hands on and burnt them! This is entirely characteristic of his
+sense of perfection, which was extreme, and may serve as an example to
+young composers who are ambitious of saying something in music, when
+very often they have nothing to say! Indeed, I am often amazed at the
+temerity with which men will rush into print, quite oblivious of the
+fact that it requires enormous talent to produce even a short piece of
+music that is worth anything. Only a genius can do it.
+
+Tausig, in my opinion, _did_ possess exceptional genius in composition,
+though he left but few works behind him to attest it. Prominent among
+these are his unique arrangements of three of Strauss's Waltzes. He had
+a passion for philosophy, and was deeply read in Kant and Hegel. These
+"arrangements" betray his metaphysical and tentative turn, and could
+only have been the product of the highest mental force and culture.
+Calling the waltz itself the warp of the composition, then through its
+simple threads we find darting backwards and forwards a subtle,
+complicated and tragic mind, an exquisitely refined and delicate
+sentiment, and a piquante, aerial fancy, until finally is wrought a
+brilliant and bewildering transcription--transfiguration rather--of
+endless fascination and tantalizing beauty, which no one but a virtuoso
+can play and no one but a connoisseur can comprehend. In a peculiar
+manner his music leaves a _stamp_ upon the heart, and to those who can
+appreciate it, Tausig, as a composer, is a deep and irreparable
+loss.--If he had not original ideas of his own, he certainly possessed
+the power of putting an entirely new face on those of others.
+
+
+
+
+WITH DEPPE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+     Gives up Kullak for Deppe. Deppe's Method in Touch and in
+     Scale-Playing. Fräulein Steiniger. Pedal Study.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _December 11, 1873_.
+
+Since I last wrote you I have taken a very important step, which is
+_this_: After taking three or four lessons of Kullak I HAVE GIVEN HIM
+UP! and am now studying under a new master. His name is Herr
+Capelmeister Deppe. I suppose you will all think me crazed, but I think
+I know what I am about. He seems to me a very remarkable man, and is to
+me the most satisfactory teacher I've had yet. Of course I don't count
+in the unapproachable Liszt when I say that, for Liszt is no
+"_professeur du piano_," as he himself used scornfully to remark.
+
+I made Herr Deppe's acquaintance quite by chance, at a musical party
+given for Anna Mehlig by an American gentleman living here. I had often
+heard of him, and was very anxious to know him, but somehow had never
+compassed it. He is a conductor, to begin with, and I have often seen
+him conduct orchestral concerts. In fact, that was what he first came to
+Berlin for, a few years ago--to conduct Stern's orchestral concerts
+during the latter's absence in Italy. Deppe is an accomplished
+conductor, and I have never heard Beethoven's second Overture to Leonora
+sound as I have under his bâton.
+
+But it was Sherwood who first called my attention to him as a teacher.
+He rushed into my room one day, and said, "Oh, I've just heard the most
+beautiful playing that ever I heard in my life!" I asked him who it was
+that had taken him so by storm, and he said it was a young English girl
+named Fannie Warburg, and that she was a pupil of Deppe's. "Well, what
+is it about her that is so remarkable," said I. "Oh, _everything_!--execution,
+expression, style, touch--all are _perfect_! I never heard anything to
+equal her, and I feel as if I never wanted to touch the piano again."
+
+This was such strong language for Sherwood, who is generally very
+critical and anything but enthusiastic, that my interest was immediately
+excited. He went on to tell me that Deppe had been training this young
+English girl, now only eighteen years of age, with the greatest care,
+for six years, and that he had such an interest in her that he did not
+confine himself to giving her lessons only, but set himself to form her
+whole musical taste by taking her to the best concerts and to hear the
+great operas, calling her attention to every peculiarity of structure in
+a composition, and giving her all sorts of hints which only a man of
+profound musical culture _could_ give. Sherwood said, moreover, that in
+summer he made her go to Pyrmont, which is a watering place near
+Hanover, where he goes himself every year, and that there he heard her
+play _every day_ Mozart's concertos and all sorts of things. I thought
+to myself at the time that the man who would take so much trouble for a
+pupil as that, would have been just the one for me, for it was easy to
+see that Deppe was teaching more for the love of Art than for love of
+money--a rare thing in these materialistic days! Afterward, you know,
+Miss B. spoke to me about him in Weimar, and I wrote you what she said.
+
+Well, as I was saying, I went to this musical party given to Anna
+Mehlig, where there were a number of musicians and critics. I was
+listening to Mehlig play, when suddenly Sherwood, who was also present,
+stole up to me and said, "Come into the next room and be introduced to
+Deppe." At these magic words I started, and immediately did as I was
+bid. I found Deppe in one corner looking about him in an absent sort of
+way. He was a man of medium height, with a great big brain, keen blue
+eyes and delicate little mouth, and he had a most cheery and sunny
+expression. He shook hands, and then we sat down and got into a most
+animated conversation--all about music. I told him how interested I was
+by all I had heard of him--how I had returned to Kullak for a last
+trial--how tired I was of his eternal pedagogism, and how I should like
+to study with _him_.
+
+He asked me what my chief difficulty was, whereupon I answered "the
+technique, of course." He smiled, and said "that was the smallest
+difficulty, and that anybody could master execution if they knew how to
+attack it, unless there was some want of proper development of the
+hand." I said I had studied very hard, but that I hadn't mastered it,
+and that there was always some hard place in every piece which I
+couldn't get the better of. He said he was sure he could remedy the
+deficiency, and that if I would show him my hand without a glove, he
+could tell directly what I was capable of. I wouldn't pull it off,
+however, because I was afraid he might find some radical defect or
+weakness in it, but I was so charmed with the way he made light of the
+technique, and with the absolute certainty he seemed to have that I
+could overcome it, that I promised him that I would go and play to him
+the following Wednesday.
+
+Accordingly on the following Wednesday I presented myself. I had
+expected to stay about half an hour, but I ended by staying _three solid
+hours_, and we talked as fast as we could all the while, too! So you may
+imagine we had a good deal to say. He lives in two little rooms on the
+Königgrätzer Strasse, only four doors from the W.'s, where I boarded for
+so long. Now if I had only known I was close to such a teacher! We must
+often have passed each other in the street, and where _was_ my good
+angel that he did not touch my arm and say, "There's the man for
+you?"--Frightful to think how near one may be to one's best happiness,
+or even salvation, and not know it!
+
+Deppe's front room was pretty much filled up with a grand piano, which,
+as well as the chairs and most other articles of furniture, was covered
+with music. I glanced over the pieces a little, and there was nearly
+every set of Etudes under the sun, it seemed to me, as well as concertos
+and pieces by all the great composers, fingered and marked with pencil
+in the most minute way. It was enough simply to turn the leaves, to see
+what a study he must have made of everything he gave his scholars. His
+inner room had double doors to it to prevent the sound from penetrating.
+I rapped at the outside one, and presently I heard a great turning and
+rattling of keys, and then they opened, and Deppe was before me. He put
+out his hand in the most cordial and friendly way, and greeted me with
+the most winning smile in the world. I took off my things and began to
+play to him. He listened quietly, and without interrupting me. When I
+had finished he told me that my difficulties were principally mechanical
+ones--that I had conception and style, but that my execution was uneven
+and hurried, my wrist stiff, the third and fourth fingers[F] very weak,
+the tone not full and round enough, that I did not know how to use the
+pedal, and finally, that I was too nervous and flurried.
+
+"If possible, you must get over this agitation," said he. "_Hören Sie
+Sich spielen_ (Listen to your own playing). You have talent enough to
+get over all your difficulties if you will be patient, and do just as I
+tell you." "I will do anything," I said. "Very good. But I warn you that
+you will have to give up all playing for the present except what I give
+you to study, and _those_ things you must play very slowly."
+
+This was a pleasant prospect, as I was just preparing to give a concert
+in Berlin, under Kullak's auspices, and had already got my programme
+half learned! But I had "invoked the demon," and I felt bound to give
+the required pledge.--So here I am, after four years abroad with the
+"greatest masters," going back to first principles, and beginning with
+five-finger exercises! I had never been given any particular rule for
+holding my hand, further than the general one of curving the fingers and
+lifting them very high. Deppe objects to this extreme lifting of the
+fingers. He says it makes a _knick_ in the muscle, and you get all the
+strength simply from the finger, whereas, when you lift the finger
+moderately high, the muscle from the whole arm comes to bear upon it.
+The tone, too, is entirely different. Lifting the finger so very high,
+and striking with force, stiffens the wrist, and produces a slight jar
+in the hand which cuts off the singing quality of the tone, like closing
+the mouth suddenly in singing. It produces the effect of a blow upon the
+key, and the tone is more a sharp, quick tone; whereas, by letting the
+finger just fall--it is fuller, less loud, but more penetrating. I
+suppose the hammer falls back more slowly from the string, and that
+makes the tone _sing_ longer.
+
+Don't you remember my saying that Liszt had such an extraordinary way of
+playing a melody? That it did not seem to be so loud and cut-out as most
+artists make it, and yet it was so penetrating? Well, dear, _there_ was
+the secret of it! "_Spielen Sie mit dem Gewicht_ (Play with weight),"
+Deppe will say. "Don't strike, but let the fingers _fall_. At first the
+tone will be nearly inaudible, but with practice it will gain every day
+in power."--After Deppe had directed my attention to it, I remembered
+that I had never seen Liszt lift up his fingers so fearfully high as the
+other schools, and especially the Stuttgardt one, make such a point of
+doing.[G] That is where Mehlig misses it, and is what makes her playing
+so sharp and cornered at times. When you lift the fingers so high you
+cannot bind the tones so perfectly together. There is always a break.
+Deppe makes me listen to every tone, and carry it over to the next one,
+and not let any one finger get an undue prominence over the other--a
+thing that is immensely difficult to do--so I have given up all pieces
+for the present, and just devote myself to playing these little
+exercises right.
+
+Deppe not only insists upon the fingers being as curved as possible, so
+that you play exactly on the tips of them, but he turns the hand very
+much out, so as to make the knuckles of the third and fourth fingers
+higher than those of the first and second, and as he does _not_ permit
+you to throw out the elbow in doing this, the _turn must be made from
+the wrist_. The _thumb_ must also be slightly curved, and quite free
+from the hand. Many persons impede their execution by not keeping the
+thumb independent enough of the rest of the hand. The moment it
+contracts, the hand is enfeebled. The object of turning the hand outward
+is to favour the third and fourth fingers, and give them a higher fall
+when they are lifted. This strengthens them very much. It also looks
+much prettier when the outer edge of the hand is high, and one of
+Deppe's grand mottoes is, "When it _looks_ pretty then it is right."
+
+After Deppe had put me through five-finger exercises on the foregoing
+principles, and taught me to lift each finger and let it fall with a
+perfectly loose wrist, (a most deceitful point, by the way, for it took
+me a long while to distinguish when I was stiffening the wrist
+involuntarily and when I wasn't,) he proceeded to the scale. He always
+begins with the one in E major as the most useful to practice. His
+principle in playing the scale is _not_ to turn the thumb under! but to
+turn a little on each finger end, pressing it firmly down on the key,
+and screwing it round, as it were, on a pivot, till the next finger is
+brought over its own key. In this way he prepares for the thumb, which
+is kept free from the hand and slightly curved.--He told me to play the
+scale of E major slowly with the right hand, which I did. He curved his
+hand round mine, and told me as long as I played right, his hand would
+not interfere with mine. I played up one octave, and then I wished to go
+on by placing my first finger on F sharp. To do that I naturally turned
+my hand outward, so as to make the step from my thumb on E to F sharp
+with the first, but it came bang up against Deppe's hand like a sort of
+blockade. "Go on," said Deppe. "I can't, when you keep your hand right
+in the way," said I. "My hand isn't in the way," said he, "but _your_
+hand is out of position."
+
+So I started again. This time I reflected, and when I got my third
+finger on D sharp, I kept my hand slanting from left to right, but I
+prepared for the turning under of the thumb, and for getting my first
+finger on F sharp, by turning my wrist sharply out. That brought my
+thumb down on the note and prepared me instantly for the next step. In
+fact, my wrist carried my finger right on to the sharp without any
+change in the position of the hand, thus giving the most perfect legato
+in the world, and I continued the whole scale in the same manner. Just
+try it once, and you'll see how ingenious it is--only one must be
+careful not to throw out the elbow in turning out the wrist. As in the
+ascending scale one has to turn the thumb under twice in every octave,
+Deppe's way of playing avoids twice throwing the hand out of position as
+one does by the old way of playing straight along, and the smoothness
+and rapidity of the scale must be much greater. The direction of the
+hand in running passages is always a little oblique.
+
+Don't you remember my telling you that Liszt has an inconceivable
+lightness, swiftness and smoothness of execution? When Deppe was
+explaining this to me, I suddenly remembered that when he was playing
+scales or passages, his fingers seemed to lie across the keys in a
+slanting sort of way, and to execute these rapid passages almost without
+any perceptible motion. Well, dear, _there_ it was again! As Liszt is a
+great experimentalist, he probably does all these things by instinct,
+and without reasoning it out, but that is why nobodys else's playing
+sounds like his. Some of his scholars had most dazzling techniques, and
+I used to rack my brains to find out how it was, that no matter how
+perfectly anybody else played, the minute Liszt sat down and played the
+same thing, the previous playing seemed rough in comparison. I'm sure
+Deppe is the only master in the world who has thought that out; though,
+as he says himself, it is the egg of Columbus--"when you know it!"
+
+Deppe always begins the scale in the middle of the piano, and plays up
+three octaves with the right, and down three octaves with the left hand.
+He says that all the difficulty is in going up, and that coming back is
+perfectly easy, as all you have to do is to let the fingers run! He
+always makes me play each hand separately at first, and very slowly, and
+then both hands together in contrary direction, gradually quickening the
+tempo. After that in thirds, sixths, octaves, etc.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _December 25, 1873_.
+
+As you may imagine, this is anything but a "Merry Christmas" for me, for
+I am simply the most completely _bouleversée_ mortal in this world! Here
+I was a month ago preparing to give a concert of my own. Then I have the
+good or bad luck to make Herr Deppe's acquaintance, and to find out how
+I "ought" to have been studying for the last four years. I give up
+Kullak and my concert plan, thinking I'll study with Deppe and come out
+under his auspices. After two lessons with him, comes your letter with
+the news of this awful national panic in it.--_Could_ anything be worse
+for a person who has really _conscientiously_ tried to attain her
+object? I'm like the professor who gave some lectures to prove a certain
+theory, and when he got to the fourteenth, he decided it was false, and
+devoted the remaining ones to pulling it all down!
+
+However, after practicing the scale on Deppe's principles, I find that
+they open the road to an ease, rapidity, sureness and elegance of
+execution which, with my stiff hand, I've not been able to see even in
+the dim distance before! One of his grand hobbies is _tone_, and he
+never lets me play a note without listening to it in the closest manner,
+and making it sound what he calls "_bewüsst_ (conscious)."--No more
+mechanical "straying of the hands over the keys (as the novelists always
+say of their heroines) thinking of all sorts of things the while," but
+instead, a close pinning down of the whole attention to hear whether one
+finger predominates over the other, and to note the effect produced. I
+was perfectly amazed to see how many little ugly habits I had to correct
+of which I had not been the least aware. It seems as though my ears had
+been opened for the first time! Such concentration is very exhausting,
+and after two or three hours' practice I feel as if I should drop off
+the chair.
+
+I forgot to say before, that Deppe enjoins sitting very low--that
+is--not higher than a common chair. He says one may have "the soul of an
+angel," and yet if you sit high, the tone will not sound poetic.
+Moreover, in a low seat the fingers have to work a great deal more,
+because you can't assist them by bringing the weight of your arm to
+bear. "Your elbow must be _lead_ and your wrist a _feather_." Of course
+the seat must be modified to suit the person. I prefer a low seat
+myself, and have even had my piano-chair cut off two inches.
+
+Before definitely deciding to give up Kullak and come to _him_, Deppe
+insisted that I should hear one of his scholars play. Fannie Warburg is
+in England on a visit, so I could not hear _her_, but he has another
+young lady pupil of whom he is very proud, named Fräulein Steiniger.
+This young lady had been originally a pupil of Kullak's, and I had heard
+her play once in his conservatory. She was a girl of a good deal of
+talent, but not a genius. Deppe said that when she came to him she had
+all my defects, only worse. She has been studying with him in the most
+tremendous manner for fifteen months, and he wanted me to see what he
+had made of her in that time. She was going to play in a concert in
+Lübeck, and he was to rehearse her pieces with her on Saturday for the
+last time. He begged me to come then, and accordingly I went.
+
+I was very much struck by her playing, which was remarkable, not so much
+for sentiment or poetry, of which she had little, but for the _mastery_
+she had over the instrument, and for the perfection with which she did
+everything. There was a clarity and limpidity about her trills and runs
+which surprised and delighted. Her left hand was as able as the right,
+and had a way of taking up a variation like nothing at all and running
+along with it through the most complicated passages, which almost made
+you laugh with pleasure! There was a wonderful vitality, elasticity and
+_snap_ to her chords which impressed me very much, and a unity of effect
+about her whole performance of any composition which I don't remember to
+have heard from the pupils of other masters. The position of the hand
+was exquisite, and all difficulties seemed to melt away like snow or to
+be surmounted with the greatest ease. I saw at a glance that Deppe is a
+magnificent teacher, and I believe that he has originated a school of
+his own.
+
+Fräulein Steiniger played a charming Quintette by Hummel, a beautiful
+Suite by Raff, a Prelude and Fugue by Bach, and two Studies, and all, as
+it seemed to me, exactly as they _ought_ to be played. After she had
+finished, we had a long talk about Kullak. She said she staid with him
+year after year, doing her very best, and never arriving at anything. At
+last, as he did nothing for her, she resolved to strike out for herself,
+and went to Deppe, who was at that time conducting Stern's orchestral
+concerts, and asked him if he would not allow her to play in one of
+them. Deppe received her with his characteristic kindness and
+cordiality, but told her that before he could promise he must first hear
+her in private, and he set a time for the purpose.
+
+She had prepared Beethoven's great E flat Concerto, which everybody
+plays here. It is as difficult for Deppe to listen to that concerto as
+it is for Liszt to hear Chopin's B flat minor Scherzo. "We poor
+conductors!" he will exclaim, "will the artists _always_ keep bringing
+us Beethoven's E flat Concerto? Why not, for once, the B flat, or a
+Mozart concerto? _Then_ we should say '_Ja, mit Vergnügen_ (Yes, with
+pleasure).' _Aber Jeder will grossartig spielen heutzutage_ (But
+everybody wants to play on a grand scale now-a-days). The mighty rushing
+torrent is the fashion, but who can do the wimpling, dimpling streamlet?
+Nobody has any fingers for the _kleine Passagen_ (little fine
+passages). Sie _haben_, Alle, _keine Finger_ (_None_ of them have any
+fingers)." He then winds up by saying _he_ is the only man in Germany
+who knows how to give them "fingers." "_Ich weiss worauf es ankommt_
+(_I_ know what it depends on)!"
+
+Nevertheless, he listened patiently for the thousandth time to the E
+flat concerto, as Steiniger played it. He then quietly called her
+attention to the fact that _she_ had "no fingers," and she was in
+perfect despair. He saw that she was energetic and willing to work, and
+he at once took her in hand and began to drill her. She withdrew
+entirely from society and devoted herself to practicing, following his
+directions implicitly. She is now a beautiful artist, and he chalks out
+every step of her career. I don't doubt she will play in the Gewandhaus
+in Leipsic eventually, which is the height of every artist's ambition,
+and stamps you as "finished." Then you are recognized all over the
+world. Deppe does not mean to let her play here till she has first
+played in many little places and succeeded. As he said to me the other
+day, "When you wish to spring over tall mountains, you must first jump
+over little mounds (_kleine Graben_.)" He counsels me to take a lesson
+of this young lady every day for a time, so as to get over the technical
+part quickly.
+
+As for Deppe's young protégée, Fannie Warburg, whom he has formed
+completely, everybody says that she is wonderful. Fräulein Steiniger
+says that when you hear her play you feel almost as if it were something
+holy, it is so perfect and so extraordinarily spiritual. She is only
+eighteen. Deppe showed me the list of compositions that she has already
+played in concerts elsewhere, and I was astonished at the variety and
+compass of it. Every great composer was represented.
+
+Among other refinements of his teaching, Deppe asked me if I had ever
+made any pedal studies. I said "No--nobody had ever said anything to me
+about the pedal particularly, except to avoid the use of it in runs, and
+I supposed it was a matter of taste." He picked out that simple little
+study of Cramer in D major in the first book--you know it well--and
+asked me to play it. I had played that study to Tausig, and he found no
+fault with my use of the pedal; so I sat down thinking I could do it
+right. But I soon found I was mistaken, and that Deppe had very
+different ideas on the subject. He sat down and played it phrase by
+phrase, pausing between each measure, to let it "sing." I soon saw that
+it is possible to get as great a virtuosity with the pedal as with
+anything else, and that one must make as careful a study of it. You
+remember I wrote to you that one secret of Liszt's effects was his use
+of the pedal,[H] and how he has a way of disembodying a piece from the
+piano and seeming to make it float in the air? He makes a spiritual form
+of it so perfectly visible to your inward eye, that it seems as if you
+could almost hear it breathe! Deppe seems to have almost the same idea,
+though he has never heard Liszt play. "The Pedal," said he, "is the
+_lungs_ of the piano." He played a few bars of a sonata, and in his
+whole method of binding the notes together and managing the pedal, I
+recognized Liszt. The thing floated!--Unless Deppe wishes the chord to
+be very brilliant, he takes the pedal _after_ the chord instead of
+simultaneously with it. This gives it a very ideal sound.--You may not
+believe it, but it is _true_, that though Deppe is no pianist himself,
+and has the funniest little red paws in the world, that don't look as if
+they could do anything, he's got that same touch and quality of tone
+that Liszt has--that indescribable _something_ that, when he plays a few
+chords, merely, makes the tears rush to your eyes. It is too heavenly
+for anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+     Chord-Playing. Deppe no "Mere Pedagogue." Sherwood. Mozart's
+     Concertos. Practicing Slowly. The Opera Ball.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _January 2, 1874_.
+
+When I had got the principle of the scale pretty well into my head, what
+should Deppe rummage out but Czerny's "_Schule der Geläufigkeit_ (School
+of Velocity)," which I hadn't looked at since the days of my childhood
+and fondly flattered myself I had done with forever. (We none of us know
+what stands before us!) After having studied Cramer, Gradus and Chopin,
+you may imagine it was rather a come down to have to take to the School
+of Velocity again! And to study it _very_ slowly and with one hand
+only!! That was adding insult to injury. Deppe knows what he is about,
+though. He began picking out passages here and there all through the
+book, and making me play them, stretching from the thumb and turning on
+the fingers as often as possible. After I have mastered the passages I
+am to learn a whole study, first with each hand alone, and then with
+both together!
+
+Deppe next proceeded to teach me how to strike chords. I had to learn to
+raise my hands high over the key-board, and let them fall without any
+resistance on the chord, and _then sink with the wrist_, and take up the
+hand exactly over the notes, keeping the hand extended. There is quite
+a little knack in letting the hand fall so, but when you have once got
+it, the chord sounds much richer and fuller.--And so on, _ad infinitum_.
+Deppe had thought out the best way of doing _everything_ on the
+piano--the scale, the chord, the trill, octaves, broken octaves, broken
+thirds, broken sixths, arpeggios, chromatics, accent, rhythm--all! He
+says that the principle of the scale and of the chord are directly
+opposite. "In playing the scale you must gather your hand into a
+nut-shell, as it were, and play on the finger tips. In taking the chord,
+on the contrary, you must spread the hands as if you were going to ask a
+blessing." This is particularly the case with a wide interval. He told
+me if I ever heard Rubinstein play again to observe how he strikes his
+chords. "Nothing cramped about _him_! He spreads his hands as if he were
+going to take in the universe, and takes them up with the greatest
+freedom and _abandon_!" Deppe has the greatest admiration for
+Rubinstein's _tone_, which he says is unequaled, but he places Tausig
+above him as an artist. He said Tausig used to come to his room and play
+to him, and he took off Tausig's little half bow and way of seating
+himself at the piano and beginning at once, without prelude or wasting
+of words, very funnily! He would scarcely take time to say "_Guten
+Abend_ (Good Evening)." Deppe thinks Tausig played some things
+matchlessly, but that in others he was dry and soulless. Clara Schumann,
+he says, is the most "musical" of all the great artists--and you
+remember how immensely struck I was with Natalie Janotha, who is her
+pupil, and plays just like her.
+
+From my telling you so much about technicalities, you must not think
+Deppe only a pedagogue. He is in reality the soul of music, and all
+these things are only "means to an end." As he says himself, "I always
+hear the music the people _don't_ play." No pianist ever entirely suited
+him, and this it was that set him to examining the instrument in order
+to see what was the matter with it. He made friends with the great
+virtuosi, and studied their ways of playing, and the result of all his
+observation is that "Piano playing is the only thing where there is
+something to be done." He declares that there is so much musical talent
+going to waste in the world that it is "lying all about the streets,"
+and he has a most ingenious way of accounting for the fact that there
+are so many great pianists in spite of their not knowing _his_
+method:--"Gifted people," he says, "play by the grace of God; but
+_everybody_ could master the technique on _my_ system!!"
+
+To show you that it is not alone my judgment of Deppe--four of Kullak's
+best pupils, including Sherwood! left him for Deppe, after I did. They
+got so uneasy from what I told them, that they went to see Deppe, and as
+soon as they heard Fräulein Steiniger play, they had to admit that she
+had got hold of some secrets of which they knew nothing. Sherwood, you
+know, is a positive genius, yet he is beginning all over again, too. In
+short, we are all unanimous, while Deppe, on his side, is much gratified
+at having some American pupils.--He flatters himself that we will
+introduce all his cherished ideas into our "new and progressive
+country."
+
+Ah, if I had only studied with Deppe before I went to Weimar! When I was
+there I didn't play half as often to Liszt as I might have done, kind
+and encouraging as he always was to me, for I always felt I wasn't
+_worthy_ to be _his_ pupil! But if I had known Deppe four years ago,
+what might I not have been now? After I took my first lesson of Deppe
+this thought made me perfectly wretched. I felt so dreadfully that I
+cried and cried. When I woke up in the morning I began to cry again. I
+was so afflicted that at last my landlady, who is very kind and
+sympathetic, asked me what ailed me. I told her I felt so dreadfully to
+think I had met the person I ought to have met four years ago, at the
+last minute, so.--"On the contrary, you ought to rejoice that you have
+met him _at all_," said she. "Many persons go through life without ever
+meeting the person they wish to, or they don't know him when they
+do."--Sensible woman, Frau von H.!--After that I stopped fretting, and
+tried to believe that there _is_ "a divinity that shapes our ends,
+rough-hew them how we may."
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _February 12, 1874_.
+
+I am now taking three lessons a week from Fräulein Steiniger and one
+lesson of Deppe himself, and he says I am almost through the technical
+preparation, though I still practice only with one hand, and _very_
+slowly all the time. Fräulein Steiniger says that she also practiced
+slowly all the time for six months, as I am now doing. In fact, she
+completely forgot how to play _fast_, and one day when Deppe finally
+said to her in the lesson, "Now play fast for once," she could not do
+it, and had to learn it all over again. Of course she very soon got her
+hand in again, and now she has the most beautiful execution, and can
+play _anything_ perfectly.
+
+Deppe wants me to play a Mozart concerto for two pianos with Fräulein
+Steiniger, the first thing I play in public. Did you know that Mozart
+wrote _twenty_ concertos for the piano, and that nine of them are
+masterpieces? Yet nobody plays them. Why? Because they are too hard,
+Deppe says, and Lebert, the head of the Stuttgardt conservatory, told me
+the same thing at Weimar. I remember that the musical critic of the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ remarked that "we should regard Mozart's passages and
+cadenzas as child's play now-a-days." _Child's play_, indeed! That
+critic, whoever it is, "had better go to school again," as C. always
+says!
+
+Deppe is remarkable in Mozart, and has studied him more than anybody
+else, I fancy. Indeed, to turn over his concertos, and see how he has
+_fingered_ them alone, is enough to make you dizzy. He is always saying,
+"You must hear Fannie Warburg play a Mozart concerto. _She_ can do it!"
+and, indeed, I am most anxious to hear her.
+
+It is ludicrous to hear Deppe talk about the artists that everybody else
+thinks so great. Having been a director of an orchestra for years, he
+has constantly directed their concerts, and he weighs them in a
+relentless balance! The other day he gave me Mendelssohn's Concerto in
+G minor, and just at the end of the first movement is a fearful
+break-neck passage for both hands. "There!" cried Deppe, "that's a good
+healthy place. _Nehmen Sie_ DAS _für Ihr tägliches Gebet_ (Take _that_
+for your daily prayer). When you can play it eight times in succession
+without missing a note, I'll be satisfied. That is one of the places
+that when the pianists come to, they get their foot hard on to the pedal
+and hold on to it--_Herr Gott!_ how they hold on to it--and so _lie_
+themselves through." He said he never heard anyone do it right except
+those to whom he had taught it. Steiniger played it for me the other day
+and it so astonished my ears that I felt like saying, "_Herr Gott!_"
+too. It was as if some one had snatched up a handful of hail and dashed
+it all over me. Br-r-r-zip! how it did go!--Like a bundle of rockets
+touched off one after the other. And yet this concerto is one of those
+things that everybody thrums, and is one of the regular pieces you must
+have in your repertoire. Deppe was quite shocked to find I had never
+learned it.
+
+My lesson usually lasts three hours! Nothing Deppe hates like being
+hurried over a lesson. He likes to have plenty of time to express all
+his ideas and tell you a good many anecdotes in between! I usually take
+my lessons from seven till ten in the evening. Then he puts on his coat
+and saunters along with me on his way to his "Kneipe," or beer-garden,
+for he is far too sociable to go to bed without having taken a friendly
+glass of beer with some one. Every block or so he will stand stock still
+and impress some musical point upon my mind, and will often harangue me
+for five or ten minutes before moving on. It seems to be impossible to
+him to walk and _talk_ at the same time! In this way you may imagine it
+takes me a good while to get home.
+
+On Tuesday there is to be a grand ball at the opera house which the
+Emperor and the whole court grace with their presence, and lead off the
+first Polonaise. There are two of these grand public balls every winter.
+The tickets are sold, and it is the sole occasion where the public can
+have the felicity of gazing upon royalty in close proximity. I have
+never been, though all my German friends have been dinning it into my
+ears for the last four years that I ought to go and see it, for the
+decorations are magnificent. This year there is to be but one, as the
+Emperor is not very well, and I expect it will be as much as one's life
+is worth to get in and get out again, such is the rush!
+
+The German officers waltz perfectly, and with great spirit and elegance.
+Dancing is a part of their military training and they are obliged to
+learn it. But they are not very comfortable partners, for one rubs one's
+face against their epaulets unless they are just the right height, and
+you've no rest for your left hand. They take only two turns round the
+room and then stop a moment or two to fan you and rest--then they take
+two more. The consequence is, one never gets fairly going before one has
+to stop. At first I used to think the effect of so many people whirling
+round in the same direction dizzying and monotonous. But when I became
+accustomed to it, the continual reversing of the Americans who come to
+Berlin struck me as angular, in contrast to the graceful German
+circling. It is not "the thing" here for the girls to look flushed and
+disordered--skirts torn, and hair out of crimp--as our belles do at the
+end of an evening. They retire from the ball-room with their dresses in
+faultless condition, so that going to parties in Germany must cost the
+_pater familias_ considerably less than with us! The floor is never so
+crowded with dancers at one time, and as they are going in the same
+direction, they don't run into each other as our couples do. On the
+other hand, they don't have such a "good time" out of it as do our
+girls, with their long five and ten minute turns to those delicious
+waltzes! Strange, that though Germany is the native home of the waltz,
+and the Vienna waltzes surpass all others, the Schottisch or
+Rhinelaender should be their favourite dance. They dance it very
+gracefully and rythmically.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _March 1, 1874_.
+
+I went the other evening to the Opera ball I wrote you of in my last.
+The whole opera house, stage and all, was floored over, and
+magnificently decorated with evergreens, mirrors, fountains, and
+flowers. The tickets are sold for some charitable purpose. Only nice
+people can get in, because the whole thing is systematically arranged,
+and nobody can give their tickets to anybody else. I got mine through
+Mr. Bancroft, and I went with two other ladies and a gentleman.
+
+We went very early, so as to get a box to sit in, and _never_ shall I
+forget the first effect of the ball-room! That immense polished floor
+stretching out like one vast mirror or sheet of ice, the fountains
+flashing at the sides, the walls wreathed with green, a big orchestra
+sitting in the balcony at each end, and about a hundred pairs of
+magnificently dressed ladies and gentlemen descending the stairs into
+the rooms and promenading about. Light, diamonds, colour, everywhere.
+Oh, it was perfectly fairy-like! The floor was built over the tops of
+the chairs in the parquette, and the entrance was through the royal box,
+which is just in the centre of the opera house, facing the stage. This
+box is like a large recess, of course, and not like the ordinary boxes.
+There was an entrance on each side, coming in from the corridor, and a
+flight of broad steps, carpeted, had been improvised, which led from it
+down to the floor. It looked perfectly dazzling to see the pairs come in
+from both sides at once and descend the steps, and the ladies' dresses
+were displayed to perfection. Such toilets I never saw. The women were
+covered with lace, feathers, and diamonds. The simpler dresses were of
+tarletane (mine included!) but as they were quite fresh they gave a very
+dressy air. We had a splendid box, first rank, and the second from the
+proscenium boxes on the left, in which sat the royal family. In the box
+between us and the latter sat the wife of the French ambassador with the
+Countess von Seidlewitz and her sister, and behind them was a formidable
+array of magnificent-looking officers in full uniform, their breasts
+flashing with stars and orders and silver chains.
+
+The Countess von Seidlewitz is a famous court beauty and is lady of
+honour to the Princess Carl (sister of the Empress). She sat just next
+to me, as only the partition of the box was between us, and she was the
+most beautiful woman I saw--perfectly imperial, in fact--white and
+magnificent as a lily. Her features were perfectly regular, and she had
+a proudly-cut mouth, and such dazzling little teeth! Then, her arms,
+neck, and shape were exquisite. She wore the severest kind of dress, and
+one that only such beauty could have borne. It was a white silk, with an
+immense train, of course, and without overskirt--simply caught up in a
+great puff behind. The waist was made with a small basque, but very low,
+and with very short sleeves. Round the neck was a white bugle fringe,
+and there were two or three rows of this fringe in front, graduating to
+the waist, smaller and smaller, and going round the basque. All the
+front breadth of the skirt was laid in folds of satin, in groups of
+three, and on the edge of every third row was the fringe again,
+graduating wider and wider toward the bottom. In her hair she wore a
+wreath of white verbenas or (snow-balls) and green leaves. Her sole
+ornament was a magnificent diamond locket and ear-rings of some curious
+design, the locket depending from a very fine gold chain, which
+challenged all observers to notice the faultlessness of her neck. One
+sly bit of coquetry was visible in two natural flowers,
+lilies-of-the-valley, with their leaves, which she had stuck in her
+corsage so that they should rest against her neck and show that they
+were not whiter than her skin.--You see there were no folds anywhere,
+as there was no overskirt, but the whole dress hung in long lines and
+showed the contour of the figure. Nothing but these fringes (which
+gleamed and waved with every motion) relieved it--not even a bit of
+black velvet anywhere, for the lace round the neck was drawn through
+with a white silk thread. There was another lady in the same box whose
+dress was very beautiful, too, though she herself was not. It was a
+green silk with green tulle overdress puffed, and with ears of silver
+wheat scattered over it. The tunic was of silver crape, the bottom cut
+in scallops and trimmed with silver wheat. A wisp of wheat was knotted
+round her neck for a necklace, and a perfect sheaf of it in her hair. It
+was an exquisite dress.
+
+At ten o'clock everybody had arrived--about two thousand people. The
+orchestra struck up the Polonaise, and the court descended from the box
+to make the tour of the floor (_i. e._, only the members of the royal
+family with their ladies of honour). The Emperor was not very well, so
+he remained in his box, but the Empress led off with the Duke of
+Edinburgh, who happened to be here. She was dressed in lavender satin,
+covered with the most superb white lace. Her hair was done in braids on
+the top of her head, very high, and upon it was fastened a double
+coronet of diamonds, stuck on in stars, etc., which flashed like so many
+small suns. Round her neck depended from a black velvet band, strings of
+diamonds of great size and magnificence. It really almost made you start
+when your eye caught them unexpectedly! The Empress is a very
+elegant-looking woman, and is every inch a queen. She moved with stately
+step, bowing and bowing graciously from side to side to the crowd which
+parted and bent before her, and was followed by the Crown Prince and
+Princess, the Princess Carl, the Princess Friedrich Carl (a beauty) and
+her daughters, and I don't know who all, with their ladies of honour.
+When the Countess von Seidlewitz came along, with her fringes waving and
+gleaming in front of her, she shone out from all the rest, and, in fact,
+from the whole two thousand guests, like the planet Venus among the
+other stars.--Stunning!
+
+The orchestra banged away its loudest, and it was quite exciting. The
+three balconies were crowded with people, and all the boxes. The box of
+the diplomatic corps was just opposite us, and our gay little Mrs. F.
+sat in it dressed in white satin. Some of my friends came and stood
+under my box and tried to get me to come down, but I would not, for I
+knew I should lose my place if I did, and, indeed, I would not want to
+dance there unless my dress were something superlative. You see, all the
+swells sat in their boxes and gazed right down on the dancers, who had a
+circular place roped off for them. De Rilvas, the Spanish minister,
+looked so fine, however, with his broad blue ribbon across his breast
+and his gold cross depending from his neck, that I should have liked
+very well to have made the tour of the room with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+     A Set of Beethoven Variations. Fannie Warburg. Deppe's Inventions.
+     His Room. His Afternoon Coffee. Pyrmont.
+
+
+    BERLIN, _April 30, 1874_.
+
+I wish you were here now so that I could play you a set of little
+variations by Beethoven called, "I've only got a little hut." They are
+_bewitching_, and I think I can now play them so as to express (as Deppe
+says) "that he had indeed nothing but his little hut, but was quite
+happy in it." In the last variation he dances a waltz in his little hut!
+I have learned a great deal from these tiny variations, taught in
+Deppe's inimitable fashion. When I first took them to him I began
+playing the second of the variations--which is rather plaintive and
+seems to indicate that the proprietor of the little hut had a misgiving
+that there _might_ be a better abode somewhere on the earth--with a
+great deal of "expression," as I thought. I soon found out I was
+overdoing it, however, and that it is not always so easy to define where
+good expression stops and bad style begins. "Why do you make those notes
+stick out so?" asked Deppe, as I was giving vent to my "soul-longings,"
+(as P. says). "Learn to paint in _grossen Flaechen_ (great surfaces)."
+He made me play it again perfectly legato, and with no one note
+"sticking out" more than another. I saw at once that he was right about
+it, and that the effect was much better, while it took nothing from the
+real sentiment of the piece. It was one of those cases where a simple
+statement was all that was necessary. Anything more detracted from
+rather than added to it.
+
+I have at last heard Fannie Warburg in a Mozart concerto, for she has
+got back from England. How she did play it! To say that the passages
+"pearled," would be saying nothing at all. Why, the piano just _warbled_
+them out like a nightingale! The last movement had the infectious gayety
+that Mozart's things often have, with a magnificent cadenza by himself.
+She rendered it so perfectly, and with such naïve light-heartedness,
+that none of us could resist it, and we all finally burst into a laugh!
+There was a little orchestra accompanying, which Deppe had got together
+and was directing. When she got to the cadenza, he laid down his bâton,
+and retired to lean against the door and enjoy it. She did it in the
+most masterly manner, and O, it was _so_ difficult! I thought of the
+Boston critic, who considered Mozart's compositions "child's play." They
+_are_ child's play--that is, they are _nothing at all_ if they are not
+faultlessly played, and every fault _shows_, which is the reason so few
+attempt them. Your hand must be "in order," as Deppe says, to do it.
+
+Fannie Warburg is a sweet little eighteen-year-old maiden. A shy little
+bud of a girl without any vanity or self-consciousness. She has a lovely
+hand for the piano, and the way she uses it is perfectly exquisite. It
+is small and plump, but strong, with firm little fingers. Every muscle
+is developed, and indeed it could not be otherwise, after such a six
+years' training. One of Deppe's rules is that when you raise the finger
+the knuckle must not stick out. The finger must "sit firm
+(_fest-sitzen_) in the joint." Fannie Warburg's fingers "_sitzen_" so
+"_fest_" that when she plays she positively has a little row of dimples
+where her knuckles ought to be. It looks too pretty for anything--just
+like a baby's hand. She does not seem to have the slightest ambition,
+however, and I doubt whether she will ever do anything with her music
+after she leaves Deppe. Her mother was from Hamburg, and had taken
+lessons of Deppe there when they were both quite young. She thought him
+such a remarkable teacher that she declared her daughter should have no
+other master. So when Fannie was twelve years old she brought her to
+him, and he has been giving her lessons ever since--something like
+Samuel's mother bringing him to the Temple, wasn't it?--and indeed when
+I go into Deppe's shabby little room I always feel as if I were in a
+little Temple of Music! I like to see the furniture all bestrewn with
+it, and Deppe himself seated at his table surrounded with piles of
+manuscript, pen in hand, going over and arranging them, bringing order
+out of chaos. Other orchestra leaders are always writing and begging him
+to lend them his copies of Oratorios, etc.
+
+Deppe has all sorts of practical little ideas peculiar to himself. For
+instance, he has invented a candlestick to stand on a grand piano. In
+shape it is curved, like those things for candles attached to upright
+pianos, but with a weighted foot to hold it firm. It is a capital
+invention, for you put one each side of the music-rack, and then you can
+turn it so as to throw the light on your music, just as you can turn
+those on the upright pianos. It is on the same principle, only with the
+addition of the foot. It is much more convenient than a lamp, because it
+doesn't rattle, and you can throw the light on the page so much
+better.--Then he always insists on our having our pieces bound
+separately, in a cover of stout blue paper, such as copy books are bound
+in. He entirely disapproves of binding music in books. "Who will lug a
+great heavy book along?" he will ask, "and besides, they don't lie open
+well."
+
+The other day Deppe told me he wanted me to come and hear Fräulein
+Steiniger take her lesson, as she had some interesting pieces to play. I
+found her already there when I arrived. Deppe was in an uncommonly good
+humour, and kept making little jokes. She played a string of things, and
+finally ended off with Liszt's arrangement of the Spinning Song from
+Wagner's Flying Dutchman. Deppe is dreadfully fussy about this piece,
+and made some such subtle and telling points regarding the _conception_
+of the composition, that they were worthy of Liszt himself. I mean to
+learn it, and when I come home I will play it to you as Deppe taught it
+to Steiniger, and you will see how fascinating it is. I know you'll be
+carried away with it.
+
+Toward the end of the lesson it was growing rather late, and time also
+for Deppe's coffee, which beverage you know the Germans always drink
+late in the afternoon, accompanied with cakes. He had just laid down his
+violin, as he and Fräulein Steiniger had played a sonata together, and
+had seated himself at the piano to show her about some passage or other.
+Deeply absorbed, he was haranguing her as hard as he could, when the
+maid of all work suddenly entered with the coffee on a tray, and was
+apparently about to set it down on the piano in close proximity to the
+violin. "_Herr Gott, nicht auf die Violin!_ (Good gracious, not on the
+violin!)" exclaimed Deppe, springing frantically up and rescuing the
+beloved instrument. "Where then?" said the girl. "Oh, anywhere, only not
+on the violin." She set it down on a chair and vanished. There were only
+three chairs in the room, and the sofa was covered with music. Fräulein
+Steiniger occupied one chair, I the second, and the coffee the third.
+Deppe glanced around in momentary bewilderment, and then sat himself
+plump down on the floor, took his coffee, stretched out his legs, and
+began stirring it imperturbably. "But Herr Deppe!" remonstrated
+Steiniger. "Well," said he, with his light-hearted laugh, "what else can
+I do when I have no chair?" There was no carpet on the floor, which was
+an ordinary painted one, and he looked funny enough, sitting there, but
+he enjoyed his coffee just as well!--After he had finished drinking it,
+the shades of night were falling, and it occurred to him it would be
+well to illuminate his apartment. He is the happy possessor of five
+minute lamps and candlesticks, no two of which are the same height. The
+lamps are two in number, and are about as big as the smallest sized
+fluid lamp that we used in old times to go to bed by. The three
+candlesticks are of china, and adorned with designs in decalcomania--probably
+the handiwork of grateful pupils, for in Germany there is no present
+like a "_Hand-Arbeit_ (something done by the hand of the giver)." It is
+the correct thing to give a gentleman. When Fräulein Steiniger and I
+only are present, Deppe usually considers the two lamps sufficient. But
+if others are there and he is going to have some music in the evening,
+he will produce the three minute candlesticks, with an end of candle in
+each, light them, and dispose them in various parts of the room. When,
+however, as on great occasions, the five lamps and candlesticks are
+supplemented by two _more_ candles on the piano in the curved
+candlesticks of Deppe's own invention, the blaze of light is something
+tremendous to our unaccustomed eyes! Nothing short of the Tuileries or
+the "Weisser Saal" at the palace here could equal it!
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _May 31, 1874_.
+
+This season with Deppe has been of such immense importance to me, that I
+don't know _what_ sum of money I would take in exchange for it. By
+practicing in his method the tone has an entirely different sound, being
+round, soft and yet penetrating, while the execution of passages is
+infinitely facilitated and perfected. In fact, it seems to me that in
+time one could attain anything by it, but time it _will_ have. One has
+to study for months very slowly and with very simple things, to get into
+the way of playing so, and to be able to think about each finger as you
+use it--to "_feel_ the note and make it conscious." Deppe won't let me
+finish anything at present, so I can't tell how far along I am myself.
+His principle is, never to learn a piece completely the first time you
+attack it, but to master it three-quarters, and then let it lie as you
+would fruit that you have put on a shelf to ripen;--afterward, take it
+up again and finish it. The principle _may_ be a good one, but it
+prevents my ever having anything to play for people, and consequently I
+have ceased playing in company entirely. In fact, I find it impossible,
+and I don't see how Sherwood manages it. _He_ has a whole repertoire,
+and sits down and plays piece after piece deliciously. But then he is a
+perfect genius, and will make a sensation when he comes out. He has that
+natural repose and imperturbability that are everything to an artist,
+but which, unfortunately, so few of us possess. His compositions, too,
+are exquisite, and so poetical! Mrs. Wrisley,[I] of Boston, and Fräulein
+Estleben, of Sweden, who left Kullak when I did, are also gifted
+creatures, whereas I think I am only a steady old poke-along, who
+_won't_ give up! Sherwood, however, is head and shoulders above all of
+us.
+
+[The following extract, taken from the report in the _Musical Review_ of
+Mr. Sherwood's address before the Music Teachers' National Association
+in Buffalo, in June, 1880, would seem to show that whether this
+distinguished young virtuoso, now by far the leading American
+concert-pianist, gained his ideas on the study of touch and tone from
+Herr Deppe or not, he certainly endorses them in both his playing and
+his teaching:--"It makes a great deal of difference whether a piano be
+struck with a stick, with mechanical fingers, or with fingers that are
+full of life and magnetism. I have examined Rubinstein's hand and arm,
+and found that they are not only full of life and magnetism, but that
+they are extremely elastic, and the fingers are so soft that the bones
+are scarcely felt. Can practice produce these qualities? I believe so,
+and I make it a point both with my pupils and myself to practice slow
+motions. It is much easier to strike quickly than slowly, but practice
+in the slow movement will develop both muscular and nervous power. And
+the tone obtained by this motion is much better than that obtained by
+striking. The mechanical practice in vogue at Leipsic and other European
+conservatories often fails because the subject of æsthetics and tone
+beauties are neglected." See pp. 288, 302-3, 334.]--ED.
+
+My lessons with Deppe are a genuine musical excitement to me, always. In
+every one is something so new and unexpected--something that I never
+dreamed of before--that I am lost in astonishment and admiration. The
+weeks fly by like days before I know it. Deppe gives me the most
+beautiful music, and never wastes time over things which will be of no
+use to me afterward. Every piece has an _aim_, and is lovely, also, to
+play to people. Now, in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories I wasted
+quantities of time over things which are beautiful enough, and do to
+play to one's self, but which are not in the least effective to play to
+other people either in the parlour or in the concert-room--as Bach's
+Toccata in C, for example. Such things take a good while to learn, and
+are of no practical advantage afterward. But Deppe has an organized
+_plan_ in everything he does.
+
+In my study with Kullak when I had any special difficulties, he only
+said, "Practice always, Fräulein. _Time_ will do it for you some day.
+Hold your hand any way that is easiest for you. You can do it in _this_
+way--or in _this_ way"--showing me different positions of the hand in
+playing the troublesome passage--"or you can play it with the _back_ of
+the hand if that will help you any!" But Deppe, instead of saying, "Oh,
+you'll get this after years of practice," shows me how to conquer the
+difficulty _now_. He takes a piece, and while he plays it with the most
+wonderful _fineness_ of conception, he cold-bloodedly dissects the
+mechanical elements of it, separates them, and tells you how to use your
+hand so as to grasp them one after the other. In short, he makes the
+technique and the conception _identical_, as of course they ought to be,
+but I never had any other master who trained his pupils to attempt it.
+
+Deppe also hears me play, I think, in the true way, and as Liszt used to
+do: that is, he never interrupts me in a piece, but lets me go through
+it from beginning to end, and _then_ he picks out the places he has
+noted, and corrects or suggests. These suggestions are always something
+which are not simply for that piece alone, but which add to your whole
+artistic experience--a _principle_, so to speak. So, without meaning any
+disparagement to the splendid masters to whom I owe all my previous
+musical culture, I cannot help feeling that I have at last got into the
+hands not of a mere piano virtuoso, however great, but, rather, of a
+profound musical _savant_--a man who has been a violinist, as well as a
+director, and who, without being a player himself, has made such a study
+of the piano, that probably all pianists except Liszt might learn
+something from him. You may all think me "enthusiastic," or even _wild_,
+as much as you like; but whether or not I ever conquer my own block of a
+hand--which has every defect a hand _can_ have!--when I come home and
+begin teaching you all on Deppe's method, you'll succumb to the genius
+and beauty of it just as completely as I have. You will _then_ all admit
+I was RIGHT!
+
+July 22.--I have finally made up my mind to go to Pyrmont when Deppe
+does, and spend several weeks, keeping right on with my lessons, and
+perhaps, giving a little concert there. I have always had a curiosity to
+visit one of the German watering places, as I'm told they are extremely
+pleasant.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    PYRMONT, _August 1, 1874_.
+
+Here I am in Pyrmont, and there's no knowing where I shall turn up next!
+Fräulein Steiniger got here before me, but Deppe has not yet arrived
+from Brussels, whither he has gone to be present at the yearly
+exhibition of the Conservatoire there. He has been appointed one of the
+judges on piano-playing. Pyrmont is a lovely little place. It is in a
+valley surrounded by hills, heavily wooded, and has a beautiful park, as
+all German towns have, no matter how small. The avenues of trees surpass
+anything I ever saw. The soil has something peculiar about it, and is
+particularly adapted to trees. They grow to an immense height, and their
+stems look so strong, and their foliage is so tremendously luxuriant,
+that it seems as if they were ready to burst for very life!
+
+Fräulein Steiniger went with me to look up some rooms. Every family in
+Pyrmont takes lodgers, so that it is not difficult to find good
+accommodations. The women are renowned for being good housekeepers and
+their rooms are charmingly fitted up, but the prices are very high, as
+they live the whole year on what they make in summer. People come here
+to drink the waters of the springs, and to take the baths, which are
+said to be very invigorating. My rooms are near the principal "_Allée_"
+or Avenue, leading from the Springs. About half way down is a platform
+where the orchestra sit and play three times a day--at seven in the
+morning (which is the hour before breakfast, when it is the thing to
+take a glass or two of the water, and promenade a little), at four in
+the afternoon, when everybody takes their coffee in the open air, and at
+seven in the evening. As I don't drink the waters I do not rise early,
+and am usually awakened by the strains of the orchestra. There is a
+little piazza outside my window where I take my breakfast and supper.
+For dinner I go to "table-d'hôte" at a hotel near.--It is a great relief
+to get out of Berlin and see something green once more. I find the
+weather very cool, however, and one needs warm clothing here.
+
+There are the loveliest walks all about Pyrmont that you can imagine,
+and beautiful wood-paths are cut along the sides of the hills. My
+favourite one is round the cone of a small hill to the right of the
+town. The path completely girdles it, and you can start and walk round
+the hill, returning to the point you set out from. It is like a leafy
+gallery, and before and behind you is always this curving vista.
+Whenever I take the walk it reminds me of--
+
+    "Curved is the line of beauty,
+    Straight is the line of duty;
+    Follow the last and thou shalt see
+    The other ever following thee."
+
+It is the first time I ever succeeded in combining the carved and the
+straight line at the same time--because, of course, it is my _duty_ to
+take exercise!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+     The Brussels Conservatoire. Steiniger. Excursion to Kleinberg.
+     Giving a Concert. Fräulein Timm.
+
+
+    PYRMONT, _August 15, 1874_.
+
+Deppe has got back from Brussels, and, as you may imagine, he had much
+to tell about his flight into the world, particularly as he had also
+been to London. He had a delightful time with the professors of the
+Brussels Conservatoire, who were all extremely polite to him, and he
+heard some talented young pupils. There was one girl about seventeen,
+whom he said he would give a good deal to have as _his_ pupil, so gifted
+is she, though her playing did not suit him in many respects. He said he
+could have made some severe criticisms, but he refrained--partly because
+he felt the uselessness of it, partly because he says "it _is_
+extraordinary how amiable one gets when _young ladies_ are in question!"
+He was very enthusiastic over the violin classes. "What a bow the
+youngsters do draw!" he exclaimed. Dupont, the great piano teacher in
+Brussels, must be a man of considerable "_esprit_," judging from the two
+of his compositions that I am familiar with--the "Toccata" and the
+"Staccato." I used to hear a good deal about him from his pupil Gurickx,
+whom I met in Weimar. Certainly Gurickx played magnificently, and with a
+_brio_ I have rarely heard equalled. He is like an electric battery.
+Quite another school, however, from Deppe's--the severe, the chaste and
+the classic! Extreme _purity of style_ is Deppe's characteristic, and
+not the passionate or the emotional. For instance, he has scarcely given
+me any Chopin, but keeps me among the classics, as he says on that side
+my musical culture has been deficient. He says that Chopin has been "so
+played to death that he ought to be put aside for twenty years!"--But if
+Chopin were really sympathetic to him he could never say _that_! The
+truth is, the modern "problematische Natur" has no charms for a
+transparent and simple temperament like his.
+
+Steiniger has been playing most beautifully lately. She has given two
+concerts of her own here, and has played at another. Then she rehearsed
+with orchestra Mozart's B flat major concerto--the most difficult
+concerto in the world, and oh, _so_ exquisite! Though I had long wished
+to do so, I never had heard it before, and as I listened I felt as if I
+never could leave Deppe until I could play _that_! I wish you could have
+heard it. It is sown with difficulties--enough to make your hair stand
+on end! Steiniger played it with an ease and perfection truly
+astonishing. The notes seemed fairly to run out of her fingers for fun.
+The last movement was Mozart all over, just as merry as a cricket!--I
+doubt whether anybody can play this concerto adequately who has not
+studied with Deppe. The beauty of his method is that the greatest
+difficulties become play to you.
+
+I love to see Deppe direct the orchestra when Steiniger plays a concerto
+of Mozart. His clear blue eyes dance in his head and look so sunny, and
+he stands so light on his feet that it seems as if he would dance off
+himself on the tips of his toes, with his bâton in his hand! He is the
+incarnation of Mozart, just as Liszt and Joachim are of Beethoven, and
+Tausig was of Chopin. He has a marvellously delicate musical
+organization, and an instinct how things ought to be played which
+amounts to second sight. Fräulein Steiniger said to him one day: "Herr
+Deppe, I don't know why it is, but I can't make the opening bars of this
+piece sound right. It doesn't produce the impression it ought." "I know
+why," said Deppe. "It is because you don't strike the chord of G minor
+before you begin,"--and so it was. When she struck the chord of G minor,
+it was the right preparation, and brought you immediately into the mood
+for what followed. It _fixed_ the key.
+
+Aside from music, Deppe, like all artists, has the most childlike
+nature, and I think Mozart is so peculiarly sympathetic to him because
+he has such a simple and sunny temperament himself. We made a beautiful
+excursion the other day in carriages, through the hills, to a little
+village far distant, where we drank coffee in the open air. Deppe, who
+knows every foot of the ground about Pyrmont, which he has frequented
+from his youth up, kept calling our attention to all the points of the
+scenery over and over again with the greatest delight, quite forgetting
+that he repeated the same thing fifty times. "That little village over
+there is called Kleinberg. It has a school and a church, and the
+pastor's name is Koehler," he would say to me first. Then he would
+repeat it to every one in our carriage. Then he would stand up and call
+it over to the carriage behind us. Then when he had got out he said it
+to the assembled crowd, and as I walked on in advance with Fräulein
+Estleben, the last thing I heard floating over the hill-top was, "The
+pastor's name is Koehler,"--so I knew he was still instructing some one
+in the fact. "I wonder how often Deppe has repeated that?" I said to
+Fräulein Estleben. "At least fifty times," said she, laughing. "I'm
+going back to him and ask him once more what the name of the pastor is."
+So I went back, and said, "By the way, Herr Deppe, what did you say the
+name of the pastor of that village is?" "_Koehler_," said dear old
+Deppe, with great distinctness and with such simple good faith that I
+felt reproached at having quizzed him, though the others could scarcely
+keep their countenances, as they knew what I was after.
+
+I have been preparing for some time to give a concert of Chamber Music
+in the salon of the hotel here, and expect it to take place a week from
+to-day. My head feels quite _lame_ from so much practicing, the
+consequence, I suppose, of so much listening. I am to play a Quintette,
+Op. 87, in E major, by Hummel, for piano and strings, and a Beethoven
+Sonata, Op. 12, in E flat, for violin and piano, and the other
+instruments will play a Quartette by Haydn in between. It is a beautiful
+little programme, I think--every piece perfect of its kind. If I succeed
+in this concert as I hope, I shall probably listen to Deppe's implorings
+and remain under his guidance another season. Deppe believes that one
+_must_ go through successive steps of preparation before one is fitted
+to attack the great concert works. I've found out (what he took good
+care not to tell me in the beginning!) that his "course" is three
+years!! and you can't hurry either him or his method. Your fingers have
+got to grow into it.--I do not at all regret, with you, not having
+hitherto played in concert; on the contrary, I think it providential
+that I did not. You see, you and I started out with wholly impracticable
+and ridiculous ideas. We thought that things could be done quickly.
+Well, they _can't_ be done quickly and be worth anything. One must keep
+an end in view for years and gradually work up to it. The length of time
+spent in preparation has to be the same, whether you begin as a child
+(which is the best, and indeed the only proper way), or whether you
+begin after you have grown up. It is a ten years' labour, take it how
+you will.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    PYRMONT, _August 15, 1874_.
+
+My concert came off yesterday evening, and Deppe says it was a complete
+success. I did not play any solos, after all, though I had prepared some
+beautiful ones, for Deppe said the programme would be too long, and he
+was not quite sure of my courage. "You'd be frightened, if you were a
+_Herr Gott_!" said he; but, contrary to my usual habit, I wasn't
+frightened in the least, and I think I did as well as such a shaky,
+trembly concern as I, could have expected, particularly as my hands are
+two little fiends who _won't_ play if they don't feel like it, do what I
+will to make them!--My programme was _à la_ Joachim (!)--only three
+pieces of Chamber Music:--
+
+    1. Quintette, Op. 87, E major,                      Hummel.
+    2. Quartette, G major,                              Haydn.
+    3. Sonata for piano and violin, Op. 12, E flat.     Beethoven.
+
+Deppe arranged the whole thing most practically. We had a large _salle_
+in the Hotel Bremen which was admirably proportioned, and a new grand
+piano from Berlin. Deppe had only so many chairs placed as he had given
+out invitations, and the consequence was that every chair was filled,
+and there were no rows of empty seats. My "public" was very musical and
+critical, and there were so many good judges there that I wonder I
+wasn't nervous; but a sort of inspiration came to me at the moment.
+
+The musicians who accompanied me were exceedingly good ones for such a
+place as Pyrmont, and my strictly _classic_ selections were received
+with great favour by the audience! That quintette of Hummel's is a most
+charming composition--so flowing and elegant--and one can display a good
+deal of virtuosity in the last part of it. I played first and last, and
+the quartette in between was performed by the stringed instruments
+alone. After I had finished the quintette, Deppe, who was at the extreme
+end of the hall, sent me word that I was "doing famously, and that he
+was delighted," and this encouraged me so that my sonata went
+beautifully, too. When it was over, ever so many people came up and
+congratulated me, and Fräulein Timm, Deppe's head teacher in Hamburg,
+even complimented me on my "extraordinary facility of execution." I
+couldn't help laughing at that, with my stubborn hand which never will
+do anything, and which only the most intense study has schooled--but in
+truth I was quite surprised myself at the plausible way in which it went
+over all difficulties! Quite a number of Deppe's scholars were present,
+all of them critics and several of them beautiful pianists. Two nice
+American girls, sisters, from the West, came on from Berlin on purpose
+for my concert. They helped me dress, and presented me with an exquisite
+bouquet. One of them is taking lessons of Deppe, and the other has a
+great talent for drawing, and has been two years studying in Berlin. She
+says she has only made a "beginning" now, and that she wishes to study
+"indefinitely" yet.--So it is in Art! I think her heads are excellent
+already.
+
+After the concert was over, Deppe gave me a little champagne supper,
+together with Fräuleins Timm, Steiniger, and these two young ladies.
+When he poured out the wine he said he was going to propose a toast to
+two ladies; one of them, of course, was myself, "and the other," said
+he, "is in America, namely, the friend of Fräulein Fay, whom I judge to
+be a woman of genius, so truly and rightly does she feel about art (I've
+translated H's letters to him), and so nobly has she sympathized with
+and stood by Fräulein Fay.--To Mrs. A., whose acquaintance I long to
+make!"--You may be sure I drank to _that_ toast with enthusiasm. Ah, it
+was a pleasant evening, after so many years of fruitless toil! The fat
+and jolly old landlord came himself to put me into the carriage and to
+say that everybody in the audience had expressed their pleasure and
+gratification at my performance. I rather regret now that I did not play
+my solos, but perhaps it is just as well to leave them until another
+time. I have "sprung over one little mound"--to use Deppe's simile--and
+got an idea of the impetus that will be necessary to "carry me over the
+mountain."
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    PYRMONT, _September 4, 1874_.
+
+After the unwonted exaltation of the success of my little concert, I
+have been suffering a corresponding reaction, partly because Fräulein
+Timm, Deppe's Hamburg assistant, with whom I am now studying, began her
+instructions, as teachers always do, by chucking me into a deeper slough
+of despond than usual. Consequently, I haven't been very bright, though
+I am gradually coming up to the surface again, for I'm pretty hard to
+drown!
+
+Fräulein Timm belongs to the single sisterhood, but is one of the fresh
+and placid kind, and as neat as wax. She's got a great big brain and a
+remarkable gift for teaching, for which she has a _passion_. I quite
+adore her when she gets on her spectacles, for then she looks the
+personification of Sagacity! She has been associated with Deppe for
+years in teaching, and "keeps all his sayings and ponders them in her
+heart." Indeed, she knows his ideas almost better than he does himself,
+and carries on the whole circle of pupils that he left in Hamburg when
+he came to Berlin. Every now and then he runs down to see how they are
+getting on, gives them all lessons, reviews what they have done, and
+brings Fräulein Timm all the new pieces he has discovered and fingered.
+She also comes occasionally to Berlin to see him, takes a lesson every
+day, fills herself with as many new ideas as possible, and then returns
+to her post. Together, they form a very strong pair, and I think it a
+capital illustration of your theory that men ought to associate women
+with them in their work, and that "men should _create_, and women
+_perfect_."
+
+Deppe makes Fräulein Timm and Fräulein Steiniger his partners and
+associates in his ideas, and the consequence is they add all their
+ingenuity to impart them to others. This spares him much of the tedious
+technical work, and leaves him free for the higher spheres of art, as
+they take the beginners and prepare them for him. _He_ has made _them_
+magnificent teachers, and they employ their gifts to further _him_. I
+don't doubt that through them his method will be perpetuated, and even
+if he should die it would not be lost to the world. On the other hand,
+he has given them something to live for.--Curious that the
+_practicalness_ of this association with women doesn't strike the
+masculine mind oftener!
+
+So I am going down to Hamburg to study for a time with this Fräulein
+Timm, as I think she will develop my hand quicker than Deppe, even.
+Deppe has always urged me to it, but I never would do it, as I did not
+know her personally, and did not wish to leave him. Now that I have
+tried her, however, I find he was right, as he _always_ is! At present
+she is throwing her whole weight upon my wrist, which I hope will get
+limber under it! She has an obstinacy and a perseverance in sticking at
+you that drive you almost wild, but make you learn "lots" in the end. I
+think my grand trouble all these years has been a stiff wrist and a
+heavy arm. I have borne down too heavily on wrist and arm, whereas the
+whole weight and power must be just in the tips of the fingers, and the
+wrist and arm must be quite light and free, the hand turning upon the
+wrist as if it were a pivot.
+
+Pyrmont is an exquisite little place, and I regret to leave it. At first
+I almost perished with loneliness, but now that I have a few
+acquaintances here I am enjoying it. It is a fashionable watering place,
+but chiefly visited by ladies. There are about a hundred women to one
+man! The first week I was here I lived at a Herr S.'s, but finding it
+too expensive I looked up another lodging and am now living with a jolly
+old maid. I like living with old maids. I think they are much neater
+than married women, and they make you more comfortable. As the season is
+now over, this one's house is quite empty, and it is exquisitely kept. I
+took two rooms in the third story, small but very cozy, and with a
+lovely view of the hills.
+
+We have just had the loveliest illumination I ever saw. It was one
+Sunday evening--"Golden Sunday" they call it here, though why they
+_should_ call it so, I know not. I accepted the information, however,
+without inquiry into first causes, and went out in the evening to
+promenade in the Allée with the rest. The Allée is not all on a level,
+but descends gradually from the springs to a fountain which is at the
+opposite end. Rows and rows of Japanese lanterns were festooned across
+the trees. As you walked down the path, you saw the festoons one below
+the other. The fountain was illuminated with gas jets behind the water.
+You could not see the water till you got close up, and at a distance
+only the rows of gas jets were apparent. As you neared it, however, the
+watery veil seemed flung over them, like the foamy tulle over a bride.
+It was very fascinating to look at, and I kept receding a few paces and
+then returning. As I receded, the watery veil would disappear, and as I
+approached it would again take form. It reminded me of some people's
+characters, of which you see the bright points from the first, and think
+you know them so well, but when you draw closer, even in the moments of
+greatest intimacy, you always feel a veil between you and them--a thin,
+impalpable something which you cannot annihilate, even though you may
+see _through_ it.
+
+We walked up and down the Allée a long time listening to the orchestra,
+which was playing. The magnificent great trees looked more beautiful
+than ever, with their lower boughs lit up by the lanterns, and their
+upper ones disappearing mysteriously into shadow. At last the tapers in
+the lanterns burned out one after another, the avenue was wrapped in
+gloom, and we finished this poetic evening in the usual prosaic manner
+by returning home and going to bed!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+     Music in Hamburg. Studying Chamber Music. Absence of Religion in
+     Germany. South Americans. Deppe once more. A Concert Début.
+     Postscript.
+
+
+    HAMBURG, _February 1, 1875_.
+
+Hamburg is a lovely city, though I _am_ having such a dreadfully dreary
+and stupid time here--partly because my boarding-place is so intensely
+disagreeable, and partly because I made up my mind when I came to make
+no acquaintances and to do nothing but study. I have stuck to my
+resolution, though I'm not sure it is not a mistake, for there is a most
+elegant and luxurious society in this ancestral town of ours.[J]
+
+Life is solid and material here, however, and music is at a low ebb. The
+Philharmonic concerts are wretched, and nobody goes to even the few
+piano concerts there are. That little Laura Kahrer, now Frau Rappoldi,
+that I heard in Weimar at Liszt's, has been wanting to come here with
+her husband, who is an eminent violinist, but she has not dared to do
+it, because all the musicians tell her she would not make her expenses.
+She played at the Philharmonic, too, but since then they won't have any
+more piano playing at the Philharmonic. Nobody cares for it, unless
+Bülow or Rubinstein or Clara Schumann are the performers. I thought Frau
+Rappoldi played magnificently, but I was the only person who _did_ think
+so. She made a dead failure here. Everybody was down on her. As to the
+criticism, it was about like this: "Frau Rappoldi played quite prettily
+and in a lady-like manner, but she had no tone, etc." Poor thing! The
+next day when Schubert went to see her she wept bitterly, and well she
+might. Schubert is one of the directors of the Philharmonic, and it was
+through him she got the chance of playing. He, too, felt awfully cut up
+at her want of success. "That is what one gets," said he to me, "by
+recommending people. If they don't succeed, _you_ get all the blame for
+it." He felt he had burnt his fingers! I think the whole secret of Frau
+Rappoldi's want of success was that she did not _look_ pretty. She was
+so dowdily dressed, and her hair looked like a Feejee Islander's. People
+laughed at her before she began. Too true!--that "dress makes the
+woman."[K]
+
+Deppe's darling Fannie Warburg gave a concert here last month, and she,
+also, got a pretty poor criticism, and for the same reason, viz.: people
+haven't the musical sense to appreciate her--at least in my opinion. The
+action of her hands on the piano is grace itself, and the elasticity of
+her wrist is wonderful. Her touch completely realizes Deppe's ideal of
+"letting the notes fall from the finger-tips like drops of water," and
+she executes better with the left hand, if that be possible, than with
+the right! At any rate, there is _no_ difference. It is the most
+heavenly enjoyment to hear her, and you feel as if you would like to
+have her go on forever. And yet, I don't believe she will make a great
+career. She has not fire enough to make the public appreciate the
+immensity of her performance. No rush--no _abandon_! She has no
+_presence_ either, but is a timid, meek, childlike little
+maiden--docility itself, but a _made_ player, as it were, not a
+spontaneous one. Such is life! To me, her playing is the purest
+music--"_die reine Musik_"--and the bigger the hall the more that _tone_
+of hers rolls out and fills it!
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    HAMBURG, _March 1, 1875_.
+
+I wish I could write up Deppe's system for publication, but it is a very
+difficult thing to give any adequate idea of. Fräulein Timm tells me it
+is only comparatively recently that he has perfected it himself to its
+present point (though he has long had the conception of it), and that
+accounts for its not being known. He was completely buried in Hamburg,
+where there is no scope for art. I believe his ambition is to found a
+School of this exquisitely pure and perfect and almost idealized
+piano-playing, which may serve as a counterpoise to the warmer and more
+sensuous prevailing one--_sculpture_ as contrasted with _painting_!
+
+I have been chiefly studying _Kammer-Musik_ (Chamber Music) this
+winter--that is, trios, quartettes, etc. Fräulein Timm is giving me such
+a training as I never had before. She has the most astonishing talent
+for teaching, and has reduced it to a science. I don't play anything up
+to tempo under her--always slow, slow, _slow_. She really dissects every
+tone, and shows me when and why it doesn't sound well. My whole
+attention is now bent upon _tone_. Ah, M., _that's_ the thing in
+playing!--To bring out the _soul_ there is in the key simply by touching
+it, as the great masters do.--It is the pianist's highest art, though
+amid the dazzle of piano pyrotechnics the public often forget it.
+
+I am just finishing Beethoven's third Trio, Op. 1. The last movement is
+the loveliest thing! It makes me think of a wood in spring filled with
+birds. One minute you hear a lot of gossiping little sparrows twittering
+and chippering, and then comes some rare wild bird with a sort of
+cadence, and then come others and whistle and call. It is bewitching,
+and the most perfect imitation of nature imaginable; gay--_so_ gay! as
+only Beethoven can be when he begins to play. Everything is on the wing.
+It is, of course, exceedingly difficult, because, like all this pure,
+classic music, to make any effect it has to be executed with the utmost
+perfection. I am so infatuated with it that when I get through
+practicing it, I feel as if I were tipsy!
+
+These Beethoven trios are a perfect mine in themselves. Each one seems
+to be entirely different from all the rest. There are twelve in all, and
+Deppe wants me to learn them all. Think what a piece of work! This
+enormous amount of literature that you must have to form a
+repertoire--the trios, quartettes, quintettes, concertos, etc., it is
+that makes it so long before one is a finished artist. And then you must
+consider the hours and hours that go to waste on _studies_, just to get
+your hand into a condition to play these masterpieces. Oh, the
+arduousness of it is incalculable! I often ask myself, "What demon has
+tempted me here?" as I sit and drudge at the piano. I play all day, take
+a walk with L. in the afternoon, and at night tumble into bed and sleep
+like a log--that is, when my hardest of beds and shivering room will
+_let_ me sleep. That is my life, day after day. I only see the people of
+the house at meals.
+
+I am the only lady in this family. All the other boarders are very young
+men, almost boys, who are here to learn German or commerce. There are
+three South Americans, one Portugese, one Brazilian, one Russian and one
+Frenchman. I hear Spanish and French all the while, but no English, and
+with the German it is very confusing.--I feel very sorry for all these
+young fellows, their lives are so bare and disagreeable, and so wholly
+devoid of any influence that can make them better or happier. As for our
+landlady, it would take a Balzac to do justice to such a combination.
+She is a good housekeeper. The cooking is excellent, and my room (when
+warm) is pleasant. Indeed, the Hamburg standard of housekeeping is much
+higher than in Berlin. Things are _much_ daintier. But her power of
+making you physically and mentally uncomfortable in other ways is
+unsurpassed. Were it not that my stay is indefinite, and that I have
+already moved once, I would not remain here. As it is, I prefer putting
+up with it to the trouble and expense of changing; beside which, I have
+found that when once you have left your own home-circle, you have to
+bear, as a rule, with at least one intensely disagreeable person in
+every house.
+
+My opinion of human nature has not risen since I came abroad, and I
+think that this winter has quite cured me of my natural tendency to
+skepticism.--I now realize too well what people's characters, both men
+and women, may become without religion either in themselves or in those
+about them. I suppose there _is_ religion in Germany, but _I_ have seen
+very little of it, either in Protestants or Catholics, and the results I
+consider simply dreadful! You see, there is _no_ adequate motive to
+check the indulgence of _any_ impulse--I have come to the conclusion
+that jealousy is the national vice of the Germans. Everybody is jealous
+of everybody else, no matter how absurdly or causelessly. Old women are
+jealous of young ones, and even sisters in the same family are jealous
+of each other to a degree that I couldn't have believed, had I not seen
+it.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    HAMBURG, _Easter Sunday, 1875_.
+
+With regard to playing in concert, I find myself doubting whether on
+general principles it is best to get one's whole musical training under
+one master only, as Fannie Warburg, for instance, has done; for my
+experience teaches me that though nearly all masters can give you
+something, none can give you everything. If, with my present light, I
+could begin my study over again, I should first stay three years with
+Deppe, in order to endow the spirit of music that I hope is within me,
+with the outward form and perfection of an artist. Next, I should study
+a year with Kullak, to give my playing a brilliant _concert dress_, and
+finally, I would spend two seasons with Liszt, in order to add the last
+ineffable graces--(for never, _never_ should an artist complete a
+musical course without going to LISZT, while he is on this earth!)--The
+trouble is, however, that one master always feels hurt if you leave him
+for another! No one can bear the imputation that he _can't_ "give you
+everything."
+
+But in truth I am getting very impatient to be at home where I can study
+by myself, and take as much time as I think necessary to work up my
+pieces. Deppe and Fräulein Timm are like Kullak in one thing. They never
+will give me time enough, but hurry me on so from one thing to another,
+that it is impossible for me to prepare a programme. So I have given up
+my plan of a concert in Berlin this spring. They have one set of ideas
+and I another, and I see I shall never be able to play in public until I
+abandon masters and start out on my own course. Two people never think
+exactly alike. Masters can put you on the road, but they can't make you
+go. You must do that for yourself. As Dr. V. says, "If you want to do a
+thing you have got to _keep_ doing it. You mustn't stop--certainly not!"
+Concert-playing, like everything else, is _routine_, and has got to be
+learned by little and little, and perhaps, with many half-failures. But
+if the "great public" will only tolerate one as a pupil long enough,
+eventually, one must succeed. At any rate, IT is probably the best and
+the only "master" for me now!
+
+On Wednesday I return for a while to Berlin, to the American
+boarding-house, No. 15 Tauben Strasse, whither you can all direct as
+formerly. This winter has been rather a contrast to last. Then I lived
+entirely among North Americans, whereas here I am almost exclusively
+with South Americans. There are any number of these latter in Hamburg,
+and you have no idea how fascinating many of them are--so handsome and
+so bright. They all have a talent for music and dancing. Their music is
+entirely of a light character, but they have _rhythm_ and grace in a
+remarkable degree. When I hear them play I always think of George
+Sands's description in her novel "_Malgré-tout_" of the artist Abel--the
+hero of the book, and a great violinist. She says, "_Il racla un air sur
+son violon avec entrain_."--That is just what these South Americans
+do--"_racler!_" They all play the piano just as with us the negro plays
+the fiddle, without instruction, apparently, and simply because "it is
+their nature to." I saw at once where Gottschalk got his "Banjo" and
+"Bananier," and the peculiar style of his compositions generally, and
+since I've met so many South Americans I can readily imagine why he
+spent so much of his time in South America. I long to go there myself. I
+think it must be a fascinating place for an artist.
+
+One of the South Americans here at the house is a boy of fifteen, named
+Juan di Livramento, or, I should say, Juan Moreiro Aranjo di Livramento!
+(They all have about a dozen names in the grandiloquent style of the
+Spaniards.) This boy is a curious youngster. He is tall and lithe, with
+the most magnificent dark eyes I ever saw or conceived, thick silky
+black hair, all in a tumble about his head, a delicate and very
+expressive face, and a clear olive complexion--a perfect type of a
+Spaniard. He seems born to dance the Bolero, like Belinda, in Mrs.
+Edwards's novel. It is the prettiest thing to see him do it--and in fact
+he does it on all occasions without any reference to propriety, being an
+utterly lawless individual. He frequently gets up from the dinner-table,
+throws his napkin over his shoulders, snaps his thumbs, and begins a
+dance in the corner of the room, between the courses. It has got to be
+such an every-day thing that nobody looks surprised or pays any
+attention to him. We dine late, and as there are a good many boarders,
+it takes some time always to change the plates. Juan, who is like so
+much mercury, never can sit still during these intervals. When asked to
+ring the bell for the servant, he will spring up like a shot, give it a
+violent pull, and then take advantage of being up to dance in the
+corner, or at least to cut a few antics, fling his leg over the back of
+his chair, and come down astride of it. This is his usual mode of
+resuming his seat.
+
+On the days when he doesn't dance, he keeps up a continual talking. He
+will rattle on in Spanish till Herr S. gets desperate, and tries to
+reduce him to order. It is a rule that German must be spoken at table,
+but Juan thinks it sufficient if he applies the rule only so far as not
+to speak Spanish, his native language. He goes to school where, of
+course, he learns English and French, and he is always trying to get
+off some remarks in these languages. He speaks all wrong, but that does
+not cause him the least embarrassment.--On Sundays especially is Juan
+perfectly irrepressible, for then Frau S. goes to dine and spend the
+evening with her parents, and Herr S. is left to maintain order. He is
+an indulgent old man, and very fond of Juan, so that the latter has not
+the least fear of him, and I nearly die trying to keep my face straight
+when they have one of their scenes.
+
+"You shall NOT speak Spanish at the table," said poor old S. the other
+day, in a rage. Spanish is jargon to him, and Juan had been talking it
+for some time at the top of his voice across Herr S., to his friend
+Candido, who sat opposite. Juan knew very well that that meant he must
+speak German, but instead of that he began in foreign languages, and
+said to Herr S., in English, "Do you spoke Russish (Do you speak
+Russian)?"
+
+Herr S., to whom English is as unintelligible as Spanish, naturally
+making no reply to this brilliant remark, Juan continued--"'Spring is
+Coming,' Poem by James K. Blake," and then he began to recite with much
+gesticulation--
+
+    "Spring is coming, spring is coming,
+    Birds are singing, insects humming;
+    Flowers are peeping from their sleeping,
+    Streams escape from winter's keeping, etc."
+
+I won't pretend to say what the rest of it was, as his pronunciation was
+utterly unintelligible. Herr S. rolled up his eyes and made no further
+protest, for he found he only got "out of the frying-pan into the
+fire," Juan having a historical anecdote called "The Dead Watch," which
+he occasionally substitutes for the poem.
+
+After dinner he generally has an affectionate turn, and goes round the
+table shaking hands with those still seated, or putting his arm around
+their necks, and then he seems like some gentle wild animal which comes
+and rubs its head up against you, and it is impossible to help loving
+him. As soon, however, as T. or anybody thrums a waltz on the piano, he
+instantly throws himself into the attitude to dance. He is so very light
+on his feet that you don't hear him, and often I am surprised on looking
+up, without thinking, to see Juan poised on one toe like a ballet
+dancer, and his great eyes shining soft on me like two suns. It is most
+peculiar. There are _no_ eyes like the Spanish eyes. Not only have they
+so much _fire_, but when their owners are in a sentimental mood, they
+can throw a languor and a sort of droop into them that is irresistible.
+This is the way Juan does, and though he is too young to be sentimental,
+he _looks_ as if he were. One minute he is all ablaze, and the next
+perfectly melting.--The other day Frau S. took him to task for his
+extreme animation.--"_Junge_," (German for "Boy"), "you mustn't scream
+so all over the house. You really are a nuisance." Juan was offended at
+this, and began to defend himself. "Why do you scold me," he said. "I'm
+always in good humour. I never sulk or find fault with anything. _Ja,
+immer vergnügt_ (Yes, always in a good humour), and ready to amuse
+everybody, and I never get angry." Frau S. admitted that was true, but
+at the same time suggested it would be well for him to remember we were
+not all deaf. Juan withdrew in dudgeon.--Well, I suppose you are tired
+of hearing about him, but these South Americans are a type by
+themselves, and I felt as if I must touch off one of them for the
+benefit of the family.
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _April 18, 1875_.
+
+Since my return I have been enjoying extremely what I suppose I must
+consider my last lessons with Deppe. After studying with Fräulein Timm I
+know much better what he is driving at. The technique seems to be
+unfolding to me like a ribbon. So all her _maulings_ were to some
+purpose! Yesterday I played him a sonata of Beethoven's and he said,
+"God grant that you may still be left to me some time longer! Now you
+are really beginning to be my scholar."--And indeed, having studied his
+technique so long with Fräuleins Timm and Steiniger, it does seem hard
+that I have to leave him! How I wish I could stay on indefinitely and
+give myself up to his purely _musical_ side and get the benefit of all
+his deep and beautiful ideas. There never _was_ such a teacher! If I
+could only come up to his standard I should be perfectly happy. Lucky
+girl--that Steiniger! Think of it! She has _nine_ concertos that she
+could get up for concert any minute. That's the crushing kind of
+repertoire he gives his pupils--so exhaustive and complete in every
+department. He knows the whole piano literature, and is continually
+fishing up some new or old pearl or other to surprise one with.
+
+I find Deppe is getting to be much more recognized in Berlin this year
+than he was before. He has just been directing a new opera here which
+has created quite a sensation, and he is continually engaged in some
+great work. Fortunate that I found him out when I did! for he takes
+fewer pupils than ever. He says he can't teach people who are not
+sympathetic to him. The other day he presented a beautiful overture of
+his own composition to the Duke of Mecklenburg, who accepted it in
+person and sent Deppe an exquisite pin in token of recognition. When
+simple little Deppe gets _that_ stuck in his scarf, he will be a
+terrific swell!
+
+Now for a piece of news! I was paying my French teacher, Mademoiselle
+D., a call one evening last week, and I played for her and for a friend
+of hers who is very musical, and who gives lessons herself. She at once
+said very decidedly that I "ought to be heard in concert." Her brother
+is the director of the Philharmonic Society in a place called
+Frankfurt-an-der-Oder--a little city not far from here. What should she
+do but write to her brother about me, and what should _he_ do but
+immediately write up for me to come down and play in a Philharmonic
+concert there the first week in May. As I have been so anxious to play
+in a concert before leaving Germany, and yet have seen no way to do it,
+I am going, of course, and am most grateful to his sister for thinking
+of it. But it is always the Unexpected that helps you out!
+
+     *     *     *
+
+    BERLIN, _May 13, 1875_.
+
+Well, dear, my little début was a decided success, and I had one encore,
+beside being heartily applauded after every piece. I went on to
+Frankfurt on Monday morning, and when I got there Herr Oertling, the
+Philharmonic Director, was at the station to meet me with a droschkie.
+We drove to the Deutches Haus, an excellent hotel, where I was shown
+into a large and comfortable room. Here I rested until dinner time, and
+after dinner, about five o'clock, Herr Oertling came back. He took me to
+the house of a musical friend of his who was to lend me his grand piano,
+and there we tried our sonata. As soon as Oertling touched his violin I
+saw that he was a superior artist, and that immediately inspired me. His
+playing carried me right along, and I think I played well. At all
+events, he seemed entirely satisfied, and said, "We could have played
+that sonata without rehearsing it." After we finished the sonata, I
+played for about an hour, all sorts of things. There were quite a number
+of people present to judge of my powers. Herr W., the owner of the
+piano, was a remarkable judge of music, and made some excellent
+criticisms and suggestions. We stayed there to supper, but I went back
+to the hotel early and went to bed about half-past nine, where I slept
+like a log till eight the next morning.
+
+After breakfast Oertling came to take me to try the pianos of a
+celebrated manufacturer of uprights. I played there three or four hours.
+The maker's name was Gruss, and his pianos were the best uprights I had
+ever seen; nearly as powerful as a grand, and with a superb tone and
+action. On the wall was a testimonial from Henselt, framed. It seems
+Henselt goes to Frankfurt every year to visit a Russian lady there, who
+is the grandee of the place and a great patroness of artists. In the
+afternoon, Oertling came for me to go and rehearse in the hall.
+Everything went beautifully, and I returned to the hotel in good
+spirits. By the time I was dressed for the concert, which was to begin
+at seven, Oertling appeared again, in evening costume, and presented me
+with a bouquet. We drove to the hall through a pouring rain. It was
+crowded, notwithstanding, for he had had the assurance to print that the
+concert was "to be brilliant through the performance of an American
+Virtuosin, named Miss Amy Fay. This young lady has studied with the
+greatest masters, and has had the most perfect success everywhere in her
+concert tours!" Did you ever!--You can imagine how I felt on reading it
+and seeing that I was expected to perform as if I had been on the stage
+all my life! Oertling had arranged the programme judiciously. Our sonata
+came _first_, so that I plunged right in and didn't have to wait and
+tremble! Then came two pieces by the orchestra; next, my three solos in
+a row, and a symphony of Haydn closed the programme. The sonata went off
+very smoothly. In my first solo I occasionally missed a note, but my
+second was without slip, and my third--Chopin's Study in Sixths--was
+encored, though I took the tempo too fast. However, the Frau Excellency
+von X. said she had frequently heard it from Henselt, but that I played
+it "just as well as he did." That's absurd, of course, though not bad
+considered as a _compliment_! They all said, "What a pity Henselt wasn't
+here!" I said to myself, "What a blessing Henselt wasn't!"--though I
+would give much to see him, as he is the greatest piano virtuoso in the
+world after Liszt.
+
+After the concert Oertling and some of the musicians accompanied me to
+the hotel, where I was obliged to sit at table and have my health drunk
+in champagne till two o'clock in the morning! for you know when the
+Germans once begin that sort of thing there's no end to it. They drank
+to my health, and then they drank to my future performance in the first
+Philharmonic next season, and then they drank to our frequent reunion,
+etc., etc. When they had finished I had to respond. So I toasted the
+Herr Director and I toasted the piano-maker, and I toasted the
+orchestra, and what not. At last I was released and could go to my room.
+The next morning I left for Berlin, which I reached in time for dinner,
+and as soon as I appeared at table the boarders saluted me with a burst
+of applause!--I found it a very pleasant _finale_.
+
+I translate for you the criticism from the _Frankfurter Zeitung und
+Allgemeiner Anzeiger_ for May 11. Herr Oertling sent it to me yesterday:
+
+"The Philharmonic concert which took place last Friday evening, must be
+considered as an excellent recommendation of the active members of that
+association to the public. For not only did the playing of the pianist,
+Fräulein Amy Fay, give great pleasure to all those who love and
+understand music, but there was also no fault to be found with the
+interpretations of the orchestra. * * * With regard to the performance
+of Fräulein Fay, we were equally charmed by her clear and certain touch
+and by her conception of the various solo pieces she played. The concert
+opened with the Sonata in E flat major for violin and piano by
+Beethoven. The whole effect of the work was a very sympathetic and
+satisfactory one, and showed a thoughtful interpretation on the part of
+the artist. The beauty of her conception was especially evident in the
+Raff "Capriccio," and in Hiller's "Zur Guitarre," given as an encore
+upon her recall by the audience, and we can but congratulate the teacher
+of the young lady, Herr Ludwig Deppe, of Berlin, upon such a scholar."
+
+     *     *     *
+
+[Two weeks after the concert, the relative to whom most of the foregoing
+letters were written, joined the writer at Berlin, and the
+correspondence came to an end. In the following September, after an
+absence of six years, my sister returned home.--My sister hopes that no
+American girl who reads this book will be influenced by it rashly to
+attempt what she herself undertook, viz.: to be trained in Europe from
+an amateur into an artist. Its pages have afforded glimpses, only, of
+the trials and difficulties with which a girl may meet when studying art
+alone in a foreign land, but they should not therefore be underrated.
+Piano teaching has developed immensely in America since the date of the
+first of the foregoing letters, and not only such celebrities as Dr.
+William Mason, Mr. Wm. H. Sherwood, and Mrs. Rivé King, but various
+other brilliant or exquisite pianists in this country are as able to
+train pupils for the technical demands of the concert-room as any
+masters that are to be found abroad. American teachers best understand
+the American temperament, and therefore are by far the best for American
+pupils until they have got beyond the pupil stage.--Not manual skill,
+but musical insight and conception, wider and deeper musical
+comprehension, and "concert style" are what the young artist should now
+go to seek in that marvellous and only real home of music--GERMANY.]--ED.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] This was written before the full development of the Thomas
+Orchestra. The writer had heard it only in its infancy.
+
+[B] Christ is risen out of bonds and death. He promises joy and blessing
+to all the world, which for this glorifies Him.
+
+[C] In Mr. Longfellow's Poems of Places is a translation of Gerok's poem
+on the subject:--
+
+    "Over three hundred were counted that day
+    Riderless horses who joined in the fray,
+    Over three hundred saddles, O horrible sight!
+    Were emptied at once in that terrible fight."
+
+[D] This letter, which was published in _Dwight's Journal of Music_, is
+the one alluded to on p. 193.
+
+[E] Liszt was born in 1811.
+
+[F] In German, the fourth and fifth fingers.
+
+[G] See p. 220.
+
+[H] See p. 294.
+
+[I] Now Mrs. Sherwood.
+
+[J] The writer's grandmother was the daughter of a leading Hamburg
+merchant who fled with his family to America when Napoleon entered it.
+
+[K] Frau Rappoldi is now a celebrity.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Music-Study in Germany, by Amy Fay
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