“‘Nothing whatever. They despise music and poetry and drama—everything. They go to the Italian Opera because the Queen goes, and that’s all. I feel quite thankful not to be out of pocket and to have been clapped at two or three concerts. That is all the British hospitality I can boast of. Even Artot, in spite of his Philharmonic success, was horribly bored.’
“‘And Doehler?’
“‘Bored also.’
“‘Thalberg?’
“‘Is cultivating the provinces.’
“‘Benedict——’
“‘Encouraged by the success of his first attempt, is writing an English opera.’
“‘Well, I’m off. Come to Hallé’s to-night, we are going to drink and have some music.’
“M. Hallé is a young German pianist—tall, thin, and long-haired—who plays magnificently, and seems to get at music by instinct rather than by notes—that is to say, he is rather like you. Real talent, immense knowledge, perfect execution, are among the gifts we all recognise in him.
“Hallé and Batta played Mendelssohn’s B flat sonata, then we had a chorus over our beer, then Beethoven’s A major sonata, of which the first movement excited us wildly, and the minuet and finale drove us to the verge of lunacy.