y as he theirs. Even when he was "la petit
Litz," he was found holding a street-cleaner's broom while he went to
change a gold piece. And in his later years, his servant always filled
two of his pockets with coin, one with copper, and one with silver; and
the man used to say that when his master came home at night, the copper
mine was usually untouched, but the silver deposit exhausted.

It was in Lyons that the comtesse began her literary career, by a
French translation of Schubert's "Erl-Koenig." She later obtained a
considerable fame, as I have said, under the name of Daniel Stern. In
the fall of 1837 Liszt and the comtesse went to Italy, where,
especially at Bellaggio, they appear to have been genuinely happy. He
seems to be describing himself when he writes:

"Yes, my friend, when the ideal form of a woman floats before your
dreaming soul, a woman whose heaven-born charms bear no allurement for
the senses, but only wing the soul to devotion, and if you saw at her
side a youth of sincere and faithful heart, weave these forms into a
moving story of love, and give it the title, 'On the Shores of the Lake
of Como.'"

To us, who think of Liszt always by his last pictures, presenting him
in his venerable age, it is hard to remember that at this time he was
only twenty-seven. It was at this time, too, that he wrote the only
composition he ever dedicated to the comtesse. In later years, it was
almost the only composition of his that she would praise; it was a
fantasia on the "Huguenots." The two lovers continued their wanderings
through Italy and Austria, he giving concerts for the flood sufferers
and the Beethoven monument and she travelling with him. While in Rome
in 1839, the comtesse had borne him a son, Daniel, having previously
given him two daughters,--Blandine, who married the French statesman,
Emile Olivier, and died in 1862; and Cosinia, the famous wife of
Wagner. All three children had been legitimised immediately upon their
birth.

Meanwhile, he and the comtesse were drifting apart, in spite of these
three hostages to fortune. It is difficult to justify Liszt's desertion
of the woman, except by slandering her memory, and it is difficult to
save her memory without slandering his. The cause, as explained by
Ramann, is, that she cherished an ambition to be Liszt's Muse, and made
strong demands for the acceptance of her opinions upon his works. We
can easily imagine the situation: A sensitive, fiery composer, w