mind unduly optimistic perhaps, but which
emboldens me to hope that I may find some new friends amongst those who
will care to read what I have to say about the old ones.

F. M.

LONDON, _February 1899_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

EARLY IMPRESSIONS 1

CHAPTER II

WILL YOU SIT FOR ME, FRIDA? 58

CHAPTER III

LEIPSIC IN 1847 AND 1848--MENDELSSOHN'S DEATH 92

CHAPTER IV

MY FIRST COMMISSION 110

CHAPTER V

CLAUDE RAOUL DUPONT 116

CHAPTER VI

A TRIP TO AMERICA IN 1883 208

CHAPTER VII

GROVER CLEVELAND "VIEWED" 234

CHAPTER VIII

GIUSEPPE MAZZINI 246

CHAPTER IX

ROSSINI 271

CHAPTER X

PARIS AFTER THE COMMUNE 300

CHAPTER XI

SOME INCIDENTS OF ROBERT BROWNING'S VISITS TO THE STUDIO 317

FRAGMENTS OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER I

EARLY IMPRESSIONS

I well remember the terrors of a certain night when the wind was howling
and the rain was beating down in torrents over the arid plains of the
Lueneburger Haide; between them they had blown or blotted out the
flickering lights of a heavy, lumbering travelling carriage such as one
used to hire in the so-called good old times. The horses were plunging
in the mire, the postillion was swearing, and a very small boy was
howling. That boy was I, and the incident marks my first entrance into
that conscious life which registers events in our memories. Not that I
exactly remember what happened, and how we got out of the ankle-deep
mud, and finally reached our destination; but I have no doubt that my
father and the "brother-in-law," as the German postillion was addressed
in those days, had to get the wheels out of the ruts as best they could
without assistance, for there was no traveller, weary or otherwise, of
the regulation first-chapter pattern, to come to the rescue.

No--I remember but little of it, but I have lived it all over again
every time I have heard the dramatic strains of Schubert's Erl-king.
Great artists, gifted with the power of song, have depicted the whole
scene to me in thrilling accents