Of the pleasant evenings we of the circle spent together I recall one in particular. My sister had been singing one song after another; my father was engaged in an animated conversation with Stefani, the pianist, on the relative merits of Mendelssohn and Schumann. Du Maurier and I had been sitting at the farther end of the room, talking of his eyes. At that time one doctor held out hopes; another, a great authority, had considered it his painful duty not to conceal the truth from his patient, and had, with much unction and the necessary complement of professional phraseology, prepared him for the worst. The sight of one eye had gone, that of the other would follow. Those were anxious days, both for him and for his friends; but, whatever he felt, he could talk about his trouble with perfect equanimity, and I often wondered how quietly he took it, and how cheerfully he would tell me that he was "fearfully depressed." That evening I had been putting the chances of a speedy recovery before him, and making predictions based, I am bound to admit, on nothing more substantial than my ardent hopes. But du Maurier was too much of a philosopher to be satisfied with such encouragement as I could give, and said: "No, I had better face the enemy and be prepared for the worst. If it comes, you see, my dear fellow, there is Nature's law of compensation, and I firmly believe that one cannot lose one faculty without being compensated by some great gain elsewhere. I suppose one gets to see more inside as things grow darker outside. If one can't paint, one must do something else—write perhaps; that is, as long as one can, and then, if the steam accumulates, and one wants a safety valve to let it off, dictate." Happily, to this day he writes, and need not have recourse to dictation.
When we joined our friends we found Van Lerius and Heyermans had been pressed into the service, and were making sketches for my sister's album. Du Maurier took up a pencil, and, with a few characteristic touches, drew that sister's eyes. "Quand je les vois," he wrote underneath, "j'oublie les miens. (Reflexion d'un futur aveugle.) When I see them I forget my own. (Reflections of a man going blind.)"
Soon the main business of the evening was resumed. Was it Beethoven's sonata for piano and violin, or a mighty improvisation on classical themes that came first? I do not recollect; but I remember that du Maurier's rendering of Balfe's "When other lips and other hearts," with my scratch accompaniment, was warmly greeted by all lips and hearts present.
When these pleasant evenings had come to an end, the friendly intercourse was not allowed to drop, and so a number of sketches by her new friends found their way into Miss Clara's album.
In the following winter, when I left on a short visit to Leipsic, he sent her a few lines through me. I quote from his letter because the wording is peculiar, and illustrates his capacity for expressing himself in a language that he had to evolve from his inner consciousness:—
"Herr Rag schickt zu Fräulein Moscheles sein empfehlung und ihren bruder; es wird höflicht gebeten das sie wird die sach reciprokiren, und in fünftzen dägen ihr empfehlung und seinen freund zuruck schicken."
For the benefit of those whose inner consciousness is not in touch with the above, I give the English version:—
"Mr. Rag sends his greeting and her brother to Miss Moscheles, and kindly requests her to reciprocate the proceeding in a fortnight by returning her greeting and his friend."
