Did Tag ever go, I wonder? Did he come back, and has he perhaps been enjoying his "old age" somewhere over here for the last thirty years?—I wish you would say what has become of you, my dear Tag. I'm sure we should be chums again, if you're anything like the dear old stick-in-the-mud of former days! Don't you recollect that sketch of Rag's? I had nearly forgotten to mention it, the one with the three ropes of life. I am climbing ahead with fiendish energy. Rag follows, steadily ascending, weighted as he is with a treasure, a box marked "Mrs. Rag, with care," and your noble form is squatting on the floor, a glass of the best blend at your feet, and a cigar you are enjoying from which rises the legend that makes you say, "What the deuce am I to do with this confounded rope? Hang myself, I wonder?" Nonsense, to be sure; but do come and tell me what you have done with the rope, or say where I can find you still squatting.
That music of a certain spontaneous kind, the music within us which we were ever longing to bring to the surface, was a bond of union between du Maurier and myself, I have already mentioned; but that bond was to be greatly strengthened by the music that great musicians on more than one occasion lavished on us. First came Louis Brassin, the pianist. He had studied under Moscheles at the Conservatorio of Leipsic, the city of Bach and Mendelssohn fame; and there, from the days of his boyhood, he had belonged to the little circle of intimates who frequently gathered around the master at his house.
When, a few years later, he came to Belgium on a concert tour, he and I found no difficulty in taking up the old friendship contracted in my father's house, just where we had left it. The boy had become the man, the student had developed into the artist and thorough musician. He was the boonest of boon companions, and his jokes were so broad that they often reminded one, in their crudeness and their rudeness, of certain passages in Mozart's early letters. To say that he spoke French with a German accent à la Svengali would be putting it very mildly; Teutonic gutturals would most unceremoniously invade the sister language; d's and t's, b's and p's would ever change places, as they are made to do in some parts of the Fatherland. With all that, he rejoiced in a delightful fluency of speech, conveying quaint and original thought. There was something decidedly interesting about Brassin's looks, but his figure gave one the impression of having been very carelessly put together; when he walked his head went back on his shoulders, and his hat went back on his head; his long arms dangled, pendulum-like, by his sides, while his lanky legs, dragging along anyhow, were ever lagging behind one another. But when he opened the piano and put hands and feet to keys and pedal, he was not the same individual. He would turn on nerve and muscle-power, and would hurl avalanches of music and torrents of notes at his audience till he, in his turn, was overwhelmed with thunders of applause. And those were the days, we must remember, when but few men could play at a greater rate than twenty to twenty-five miles an hour; when grand pianos were not yet ironclad and armour-plated, or had learnt proudly to display the maker's name on their broadside when they went forth to do battle on the concert field.
Brassin used to draw inane caricatures of himself, which he would present to us with a triumphant laugh of immoderate calibre. I have preserved some of these, but decidedly prefer du Maurier's rendering of our common friend. In the accompanying drawing he shows him at the piano, entertaining us on "A rainy day."
"Ah! Felix, amico mio," he says, "may thy room be always as jolly, thy coffee be ever so sweet, as on that happy morning! May Brassin's fingers be ever as brilliant and inspired! May Tag be ever as lazy, and with equal satisfaction to himself, and may I never be blinder! Amen."
That sketch admirably pourtrays the lankiness and flabbiness of Brassin's figure, contrasting as it did with the strength of the wrist and the grip of the fingers. He was certainly a fine subject for du Maurier, whom I always looked upon as a sort of vivisector of music and musicians, of their methods and their moods. A brilliant career awaited Louis Brassin, but it was to be suddenly and unexpectedly cut off. He died some ten years ago at the age of forty-four.
In 1858 my father came on a visit to Antwerp with my mother and my youngest sister, Clara. Wherever my father took up his abode, even temporarily, a grand piano would in the natural course of events gravitate towards him, and a select circle of art lovers would soon be grouped around it. Amongst the friends in the Antwerp circle were—Van Lerius, Tadema, Baron Leys, Heyermans, and Bource. My sister at that time was a bright and happy creature, not long out of her teens, full of hopes—alas! never to be realised, and of talents never to be matured. The large dark eyes—they seemed the gift of her godmother, the famous Malibran—reflected the artist's soul, and a grand soprano voice spoke its powerful language. Du Maurier and she were soon on a brother and sisterly footing, and they ever remained so.