ple, unaffected goodness of heart which prompted
them.

Still he was wounded by ingratitude and abuse. It seemed to check and
paralyze for the moment his generous nature. Fetis saw him at Coblenz
soon after the Bonn festival, at which he had expended such vast sums.
He was sitting alone, dejected and out of health. He said he was sick
of everything, tired of life, and nearly ruined. But that mood never
lasted long with Liszt; he soon arose and shook himself like a lion.
His detractors slunk away into their holes, and he walked forth
victorious to refill his empty purse and reap new laurels.

His career was interrupted by the stormy events of 1848. He settled
down for a time at Weimar, and it was then that he began to take that
warm interest in Richard Wagner which ended in the closest and most
enduring of friendships.

He labored incessantly to get a hearing for the "Lohengrin" and
"Tannhaeuser." He forced Wagner's compositions on the band, on the
grand-duke; he breasted public opposition and fought nobly for the
eccentric and obscure person who was chiefly known as a political
outlaw and an inventor of extravagant compositions which it was
impossible to play or sing, and odiously unpleasant to listen to. But
years of faithful service, mainly the service and immense _prestige_
and authority of Liszt, procured Wagner a hearing, and paved the way
for his glorious triumphs at Bayreuth in 1876, 1882, and 1883.

I have preferred to confine myself in this article to the personality of
Liszt, and have made no allusion to his orchestral works and oratorio
compositions. The "Symphonic Poems" speak for themselves--magnificent
renderings of the inner life of spontaneous emotion--but subject-matter
which calls for a special article can find no place at the fag-end of
this, and at all times it is better to hear music than to describe it.
As it would be impossible to describe Liszt's orchestration intelligibly
to those who have not heard it, and unnecessary to those who have, I
will simply leave it alone.

I saw Liszt but six times, and then only between the years 1876 and
1881. I heard him play upon two occasions only, and then he played
certain pieces of Chopin at my request and a new composition by
himself. I have heard Mme Schumann, Buelow, Rubenstein, Menter, and
Esipoff, but I can understand that saying of Tausig, himself one of
the greatest masters of _technique_ whom Germany has ever produced:
"No mortal can measure him