er his many patches of
honour as well as he was permitted. The comtesse had a personal income
of four thousand dollars a year, which was as nothing. According to
Liszt's secretary, during the time of her stay with Liszt, she spent
sixty thousand dollars, the most of which Liszt earned himself by his
concerts. The pianist and the comtesse soon left Basle for Geneva,
where they remained till 1836, with the exception of one journey to
Paris, which Liszt made for a concert. But he returned rather to
literature than to music, as on another occasion did Wagner.

For five years Liszt and the comtesse travelled about Switzerland and
Italy, he occasionally being convinced that he was seriously in love
with the woman who had been so imperious and unreasonable. A few
conservatives outlawed him, but there were people enough who forgave
him, or approved him, to give him an abundance of society of the
highest and most aristocratic sort.

In 1836 his old flame, George Sand, visited Liszt and the comtesse.
They toured Switzerland on mules. George Sand has described the
wanderings in her "Lettres d'un Voyageur," where _Franz_ represents
Liszt, _Arabella_, the comtesse, and where one may read a poetic
description of the comtesse' beauty even after being drenched with
rain. Beauty that is water-proof is beauty indeed!

It is in this book of hers that Sand prints such illuminating epigrams
as these:

"There are great errors which are nearer the truth than little truths."

"The most beautiful creations of genius are those which succeed to the
epoch of the passions. The experience of life ought to precede art; art
requires repose, and does not suit with the storms of the heart. The
finest mountains of our globe are extinguished volcanoes."

"If you wish to arrive at truth, be reconciled to what is contrary; the
white light only results from the union of the coloured rays of the
spectrum."

"The oyster boasts and says: 'I have never gone astray,' Alas, poor
oyster! thou hast never walked."

When Liszt had made his concert trip to Paris, the comtesse had awaited
him at Sand's home. Then, after his famous duel with Thalberg--the
weapons being pianos--he joined the group at Nohant, where Chopin and
Sand, and Liszt and D'Agoult, and such guests as they gathered there,
led a life of elaborate entertainment which made Nohant as famous as
another Trianon. Meanwhile, there was going on a duel, the weapons of
which were not pianos, but those