give herself
unreservedly only to the One who Understands. Yet the Countess was not
miserable--only at rare intervals did there come moods of a sort of
dread longing, homesickness and unrest; but calm philosophy soon put
these moods to rout. She had focused her mind on sociology and had
written a short history of the Revolution, a volume that yet commands
the respect of students. At intervals she read her essays aloud to
invited guests. She studied art, delved a little in music, became
acquainted with the leading thinking men and women of her time, and
opened her salon for their entertainment.

Three children had been born to her in six years. Maternity is a very
necessary part of every good woman's education--"this woman's flesh
demands its natural pains," says a great writer in a certain play. A
staid, sensible woman was the Countess d'Agoult--tall, handsome,
graceful, and with a flavor of melancholy, reserve and disinterestedness
in her make-up that made her friendship sought by men of maturity. She
talked but little, and won through the fine art of listening.

She was neither happy nor unhappy, and if the gaiety of girlhood had
given way to subdued philosophy, there were still wit, smiles and gentle
irony to take the place of laughter. "Life," she said, "consists in
molting one's illusions."

The Countess was twenty-nine years of age when "Le Grand Prodige," aged
twenty-three, arrived in Paris. She had known him when he was "Le Petit
Prodige"--when she was a girl with dreams and he but a child. She wished
to see how he had changed, and so went to hear him play. He was
insincere, affected and artificial, she said--his mannerisms absurd and
his playing acrobatic. At the next concert where he played she sought
him out and half-laughingly told him her opinion of his work. He gravely
thanked her, with his hand upon his heart, and said that such honesty
and frankness were refreshing. After the concert Liszt remembered this
woman--she was the only one he did remember--she had made her
impression.

He did not like her.

Soon Liszt was invited to the salon of the Countess d'Agoult, and he,
the plebeian, proudly repulsed the fair aristocrat when her attentions
took on the note of patronage. They mildly tiffed--a very good way to
begin a friendship, once said Chateaubriand.

The feminine qualities in the heart of Liszt made a lure of the person
who dared affront him. He needed the flint on which his mind could
strike