piano of
ancient aspect, and beginning to extemporise soon became lost in
reverie. The empty room, the 'old grey instrument which the fingers
of several generations may have played,' and the silence affected him
so deeply that he forgot the passing time, until he was reminded of
the approach of the concert hour by the people coming in to take their
seats. When, having first put himself into _grande toilette_--very
long, white trousers, brown silk waistcoat, black necktie, and blue
dress coat--he mounted the orchestra he felt nervous; a panic seized
him, for the hall was crowded, ladies even sitting in the orchestra
who could not get places in the room. 'But as the gay bonnets gave me
a nice reception, and applauded when I came ... and as I found the
instrument very excellent and of a light touch, I lost all my
timidity, became quite comfortable, and was highly amused to see the
bonnets agitated at every little cadenza, which to me and many critics
brought to mind the simile of the wind and the tulip-bed.'

A dinner-party followed the concert, and then he went to visit some
friends living out of town with whom he was to spend the night.
Finding no carriage to convey him, he set out to walk through the
fields in the cool of the evening. Can we not picture him crossing the
still meadows by a lonely path, meeting no one, the air redolent of
spring flowers, musical ideas floating through his mind--ideas which
there was nobody to hear, which nobody, perhaps, was ever destined to
hear, as he sang them aloud in the fading light, 'the whole sky grey,
with a purple streak on the horizon, and the thick cloud of smoke
behind him.'

Amidst the round of work and the pressure of invitations which made up
the sum of his daily life in London, the love of boyish fun, which
formed a wholesome counteraction to his serious moods, broke out every
now and then with its old accustomed force, eclipsing for the moment
the memories of stately dinner-parties and receptions. One night when
in company with two friends he was returning from what he terms 'a
highly diplomatic dinner-party' at the Prussian Ambassador's, where
they had taken their 'fill of fashionable dishes, sayings, and
doings,' they passed a very enticing sausage-shop in which some German
sausages were exposed in the window. A wave of patriotism overcame
them; they entered, and each bought a long sausage, and then the trio
turned into a quiet street to devour them, accompanying th