them. They resolved to bind him for ever to the Hungarian
nation from which he sprang. The token of manly honor in Hungary is
a sword, for every Magyar has the right to wear a sword, and avails
himself of that right. It was determined that their celebrated
countryman should be presented with the Hungarian sword of honor. The
noblemen appeared at the theatre, in the rich costume they usually wear
before the emperor, and presented Liszt, midst thunders of applause from
the whole assembled people, with a costly sword of honor." It was also
proposed to erect a bronze statue of him in Pesth, but Liszt persuaded
his countrymen to give the money to a struggling young artist instead.

IV.

In the autumn of 1840 Liszt went from Paris, at which city he had been
playing for some time, to the north of Germany, where he at first found
the people colder than he had been wont to experience. But this soon
disappeared before the magic of his playing, and even the Hamburgers,
notorious for a callous, bovine temperament, gave wild demonstrations
of pleasure at his concerts. He specially pleased the worthy citizens
by his willingness to play off-hand, without notes, any work which they
called for, a feat justly regarded as a stupendous exercise of memory.
From Hamburg he went to London, where he gave nine concerts in a
fortnight, and stormed the affections and admiration of the English
public as he had already conquered the heart of Continental Europe.
While in London a calamity befell him. A rascally agent in whom he
implicitly trusted disappeared with the proceeds of three hundred
concerts, an enormous sum, amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds
sterling. Liszt bore this reverse with cheerful spirits and scorned
the condolences with which his friends sought to comfort him, saying he
could easily make the money again, that his wealth was not in money, but
in the power of making money.

The artist's musical wanderings were nearly without ceasing. His
restless journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the
British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed
at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be
designated by the term "colossal." It seems cumbersome and monotonous to
repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended
by features of peculiar interest. He offered, in the summer of 1841,
to give the proceeds of a concert to the completion of the Cathed