round.

"None whatever. I intend to remain in my present condition--no lower if
I can help it, but certainly no higher. I have good reasons for knowing
it to be my duty to do so."

And then he urged them so strongly to stand by Herr von Francius that we
were quite astonished. He told them that von Francius would some time
rank with Schumann, Raff, or Rubinstein, and that the men who rejected
him now would then be pointed out as ignorant and prejudiced.

And amid the silence that ensued, he began to direct us--we had a probe
to Liszt's "Prometheus," I remember.

He had won the day for von Francius, and von Francius, getting to hear
of it, came one day to see him and frankly apologized for his prejudice
in the past, and asked Eugen for his friendship in the future. Eugen's
answer puzzled me.

"I am glad, you know, that I honor your genius, and wish you well," said
he, "and your offer of friendship honors me. Suppose I say I accept
it--until you see cause to withdraw it."

"You are putting rather a remote contingency to the front," said von
Francius.

"Perhaps--perhaps not," said Eugen, with a singular smile. "At least I
am glad to have had this token of your sense of generosity. We are on
different paths, and my friends are not on the same level as yours--"

"Excuse me; every true artist must be a friend of every other true
artist. We recognize no division of rank or possession."

Eugen bowed, still smiling ambiguously, nor could von Francius prevail
upon him to say anything nearer or more certain. They parted, and long
afterward I learned the truth, and knew the bitterness which must have
been in Eugen's heart; the shame, the gloom; the downcast sorrow, as he
refused indirectly but decidedly the thing he would have liked so
well--to shake the hand of a man high in position and honorable in
name--look him in the face and say, "I accept your friendship--nor need
you be ashamed of wearing mine openly."

He refused the advance; he refused that and every other opening for
advancement. The man seemed to have a horror of advancement, or of
coming in any way forward. He rejected even certain offers which were
made that he should perform some solos at different concerts in
Elberthal and the neighborhood. I once urged him to become rich and have
Sigmund back again. He said: "If I had all the wealth in Germany, it
would divide us further still."

I have said nothing about the blank which Sigmund's absence made in our