is to say, when he played
"Reis," he improved on him, with variations all his own--attempts often
made with the work of great composers, but which incur risks not
advised.

It will be seen that Liszt, although born in poverty, was from the very
first in a distinctly musical environment. He could not remember a time
when he did not attend the band-concerts--his parents wanted to go, and
took the baby because there were no servants to take charge of him at
home. Music was in the air, and everybody discussed it, just as in Italy
you may hear the beggars in the streets criticizing art.

The delightful insouciance of this child-pianist won the heart of every
hearer, and his success quite turned the head of his father, the worthy
bookkeeper.

To give the child the advantages of an education was now his parents'
one ambition. Having no money of his own, the father importuned his
employer, the Prince, who rather smiled at the thought of spending time
and money on such an elfin-like child. His playing was, of course,
phenomenal, unaccountable, a sort of bursting out of the sun's rays,
and, like the rainbow, a thing not to be seized upon and kept. It was
mere precocity, and precocity is a rareripe fruit, with a worm at the
core. This discouragement of the over-ambitious father was probably
wise, for it gave the boy a chance to play I-Spy and leapfrog in the
streets of the village, and to roam the fields. The lad became strong
and well, and when ten years of age he had grown into a handsome
youngster with already those marks of will and purpose on his beautiful
face that were to be his credentials to place and power.

He had often played at concerts in the towns and villages about, and
when there were visitors at the palace this fine, slim son of the
bookkeeper was sent for to entertain them.

This attention kept ambition alive in the hearts of his parents, and
after many misgivings they decided to hazard all and move to Vienna to
give their boy the opportunities they felt he deserved.

The entire household effects being sold, the bookkeeper found he had
nearly six hundred francs--one hundred fifty dollars. To this amount
Prince Esterhazy added fifty dollars, and Hummel gave his mite, and with
tears of regret at breaking up the home-nest, but with high hope,
flavored by chill intervals of fear, the father, mother and boy started
for Vienna.

Arriving in that city the distinguished Carl Czerny, pupil of Beethoven,
was impo