e all scruples. The first year of these art travels was made
memorable by the great inundation of the Danube, which caused so much
suffering at Pesth. Thousands of people were rendered homeless, and
the scene was one that appealed piteously to the humanitarian mind. The
heart of Franz Liszt burned with sympathy, and he devoted the proceeds
of his concerts for nearly two months to the alleviation of the woes of
his countrymen. A princely sum was contributed by the artist, which went
far to assist the sufferers. The number of occasions on which Liszt
gave his services to charity was legion. It is credibly stated that the
amount of benefactions contributed by his benefit concerts, added to the
immense sums which he directly disbursed, would have made him several
times a millionaire.

The blaze of enthusiasm which Liszt kindled made his track luminous
throughout the musical centers of Europe. Caesar-like, his very arrival
was a victory, for it aroused an indescribable ferment of agitation,
which rose at his concerts to wild excesses. Ladies of the highest rank
tore their gloves to strips in the ardor of their applause, flung
their jewels on the stage instead of bouquets, shrieked in ecstasy and
sometimes fainted, and made a wild rush for the stage at the close of
the music to see Liszt, and obtain some of the broken strings of the
piano, which the artist had ruined in the heat of his play, as precious
relics of the occasion. The stories told of the Liszt craze among the
ladies of Germany and Russia are highly amusing, and have a value as
registering the degree of the effect he produced on impressible minds.
Even sober and judicious critics who knew well whereof they spoke
yielded to the contagion. Schumann writes of him, _apropos_ of his
Dresden and Leipzig concerts in 1840: "The whole audience greeted his
appearance with an enthusiastic storm of applause, and then he began to
play. I had heard him before, but an artist is a different thing in the
presence of the public compared with what he appears in the presence of
a few. The fine open space, the glitter of light, the elegantly dressed
audience--all this elevates the frame of mind in the giver and receiver.
And now the demon's power began to awake; he first played with the
public as if to try it, then gave it something more profound, until
every single member was enveloped in his art; and then the whole mass
began to rise and fall precisely as he willed it. I never found