"Our temporary fellowship with Liszt procured for us a delightful participation in a tribute of admiration from the citizen workmen of Coblentz, that was what the French call saisissant. We were sitting all in our hotel drawing-room together, the maestro, as usual, smoking his long pipe, when a sudden burst of music made us throw open the window and go out on the balcony, when Liszt was greeted by a magnificent chorus of nearly two hundred men's voices. They sang to perfection, each with his small sheet of music and his sheltered light in his hand; and the performance, which was the only one of the sort I ever heard, gave a wonderful impression of the musical capacity of the only really musical nation in the world."
Mrs. Kemble also gives her impression of Liszt at Munich in 1870:
"I had gone to the theatre at Munich, where I was staying, to hear Wagner's opera of the Rheingold, with my daughter and her husband. We had already taken our places, when S. exclaimed to me, 'There is Liszt.' The increased age, the clerical dress had effected but little change in the striking general appearance, which my daughter (who had never seen him since 1842, when she was quite a child) recognised immediately. I went round to his box, and, recalling myself to his memory, begged him to come to ours, and let me present my daughter to him. He very good-naturedly did so, and the next day called upon us at our hotel and sat with us a long time. His conversation on matters of art (Wagner's music which he and we had listened to the evening before) and literature was curiously cautious and guarded, and every expression of opinion given with extreme reserve, instead of the uncompromising fearlessness of his earlier years; and the Abbé was indeed quite another from the Liszt of our summer on the Rhine of 1842."
LOLA MONTEZ
The once notorious actress, who, after a series of adventures caused some uproar at Munich, met Liszt during his travels in Germany, and her biographer relates how they divided honours at Dresden in 1842.
"Through the management of influential friends an opening was made for her at the Royal Theatre at Dresden, where she met the celebrated pianist, Franz Liszt, who was then creating such a furore that when he dropped his pocket handkerchief it was seized by the ladies and torn into rags, which they divided among themselves—each being but too happy to get so much as a scrap which had belonged to the great artist. The furore created by Lola Montez' appearance at the theatre in Dresden was quite as great among the gentlemen as was Liszt's among the ladies."
Lola Montez, during the last few years of her life, devoted herself to lecturing in various European cities, and the following is extracted from a published one entitled, "The Wits and Women of Paris":
"There was a gifted and fashionable lady (the Countess of Agoult), herself an accomplished authoress, concerning whom and George Sand a curious tale is told. They were great friends, and the celebrated pianist Liszt was the admirer of both. Things went on smoothly for some time, all couleur de rose, when one fine day Liszt and George Sand disappeared suddenly from Paris, having taken it into their heads to make the tour of Switzerland for the summer together. Great was the indignation of the fair countess at this double desertion; and when they returned to Paris Madame d'Agoult went to George Sand and immediately challenged the great writer to a duel, the weapons to be finger-nails, etc. Poor Liszt ran out of the room and locked himself up in a dark closet till the deadly affray was ended, and then made his body over in charge to a friend, to be preserved, as he said, for the remaining assailant. Madame d'Agoult was married to a bookworm, who cared for naught else but his library; he did not know even the number of children he possessed, and so little the old philosopher cared about the matter that when a stranger came to the house he invariably, at the appearance of the family, said: 'Allow me to present to you my wife's children'; all this with the blandest smile and most contented air."
Lola Montez also says in her lecture: