me as a very gentlemanly, dignified, and quietly remarkable
man, whom it would be difficult to readily or really understand. "He had
unmistakably the manner peculiar to many great Germans, which, as I have
elsewhere observed, is perceptible in the _maintien_ and features of
Goethe, Humboldt, Bismarck," and Brugsch, of Berlin (whom I learned to
know in later years). Thalberg gave me the impression, which grew on me,
of a man who knew many things besides piano-playing, and that he was born
to a higher specialty. He was dignified but affable. I remember that
one day, when he, or some one present, remarked that his name was not a
common one, I made him laugh by declaring that it occurred in two pieces
in an old German ballad:--

"Ich that am BERGE stehen,
Und sohaute in das THAL;
Da hab' ich sie gesehen,
Zum aller letzten mal."

"I stood upon the _mountain_,
And looked the _valley_ o'er;
There I indeed beheld her,
But saw her never more."

Thalberg's playing was marvellously like his character or himself: Heine
calls it gentlemanly. Thackeray was marked in his manner, and showed
impulse and energy in small utterances. I may err, but I do not think he
could have endured solitude or too much of himself. He was eminently
social, and rather given at times to reckless (not deliberate or
spiteful), sarcastic or "ironic" sallies, in which he did not, with
Americans, generally come off "first best." There was a very beautiful
lady in Boston with whom the great novelist was much struck, and whom he
greatly admired, as he sent her two magnificent bronzes. Having dined
one evening at her house, he remarked as they all entered the
dining-room, "Now I suppose that, according to your American custom, we
shall all put our feet up on the chimney-piece." "Certainly," replied
his hostess, "and as your legs are so much longer than the others, you
may put your feet on top of the looking-glass," which was about ten feet
from the ground. Thackeray, I was told, was offended at this, and showed
it; he being of the "give but not take" kind. One day he said to George
Boker, when both were looking at Durer's etching of "Death, Knight, and
the Devil," of which I possess a fine copy, "Every man has his devil whom
he cannot overcome; I have two--laziness, and love of pleasure." I
remarked, "Then why the devil seek to overcome them? Is it not more
noble and sensible to yield where resistance is in va