minute details of their busy lives and of other
notable people. There is much, of course, about music and travel, and a
vast amount of religious ardour. There is also much expression of the
utmost devotion and loneliness. Years of this life of reunion and
separation went on.

Writing to the princess on the 21st of June, 1872, he mentions Wagner,
whose marriage to Cosima von Buelow (_nee_ Liszt) scandalised the world
and alienated even Liszt. There are biographers who deny this, but in
this letter to the princess, Liszt encloses Wagner's letter of most
affectionate appeal for reconciliation, and with it his answer, giving
his long-withheld blessing. Describing this reunion with Wagner, Liszt
is moved to say to the princess:

"God will pardon me for leaning to the side of mercy, imploring his and
abandoning myself entirely to it. As for the world, I am not uneasy as
to its interpretation of that page of what you call 'my biography.' The
only chapter that I have ardently desired to add to it, is missing. May
the good angels keep you, and bring me to you in September."

Through many others of his letters rings this vain "_leit-motif_" like
the wail of Tristan. But nothing could remove the spell the Church had
cast upon the princess.

She sank deeper and deeper into seclusion, and during the twenty-seven
years she lived in Rome she left her home in the Via del Babuino only
once for twenty-four hours. She grew more and more immersed in the
Church and its affairs. Gregororius said she fairly "sputtered
spirituality." She began to write, and certain of her essays were
revised by Henri Lasserre, under the name, "Christian Life in Public,"
and were widely read, being translated into English and Spanish. Her
chief work was a twenty-four-volume study bearing the thrilling title,
"Interior Causes of the Exterior Weakness of the Church." This
ponderous affair she finished a few days before her death, with hand
already swollen almost beyond the power of holding the pen.

Here in Rome, as in Russia and at Weimar, where she was, there was a
salon. But she grew wearier and wearier of life, and weaker and weaker,
until she spent months and months in bed, and would rarely cross her
door-sill. To the last she and Liszt were lovers, however remote. And
his letters are rarely more than a few days apart. He continues to sign
himself, even in the final year of his life, "Umilissimo sclavissimo."
His last letter concerned the marriage of hi