ays 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, and calls upon one or the other of us to play. From time
to time he will sit down and himself play 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 can not 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.

Liszt is not at all like a master, and can not be treated as one.
He is a monarch, and when he extends his royal scepter 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 can not 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 thing 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 noticed that funny little expression come over
his face, which he always has when he means to surprise you, and he
then 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?

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 Stuttgart conservatory played a Liszt
concerto.