B. W. H.
An American lady who signs herself "B. W. H.," and wrote some reminiscences of the great musician at Weimar in 1877, calls her contribution An Hour Passed with Liszt:
"How much more some of us get than we deserve! A pleasure has come to us unsought. It came knocking at our door seeking entrance and we simply did not turn it away. It happened in this fashion: A friend had been visiting Liszt in Weimar and happened to mention us to the great master, who promised us a gracious reception should we ever appear there. To Weimar then we came, and the gracious reception we certainly had, to our satisfaction and lasting remembrance.
"After sending our cards, and receiving permission to present ourselves at an appointed and early hour, we drove to the small, cosy house occupied by Liszt when here, on the outskirts of the garden of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and were ushered by his Italian valet into a comfortable, cosy, home-like apartment, where we sat awaiting the great man's appearance. Wide casements opened upon a stretch of lawn and noble old trees; easy-chairs and writing-tables; MS. music, with the pen lying carelessly beside it; masses of music piled up on the floor, a row of books there, too; a grand piano and an upright one; a low dish of roses on the table; a carpet, which is not taken for granted here as with us—altogether the easy, friendly look of a cottage drawing-room at home, where people have a happy use of pleasant things.
"He entered the room after a few minutes and greeted us with a charming amiability, for which we inwardly blessed the absent friend. Of course everybody knows how he looks—tall, thin, with long white hair; a long, black, robe-like coat, being an abbé; long, slight, sensitive hands; a manner used to courts, and a smile and grace rare in a man approaching seventy. He spoke of Anna Mehlig, and of several young artists just beginning their career, whom we personally know. Very graciously he mentioned Miss Cecilia Gaul, of Baltimore; spoke kindly of Miss Anna Bock, one of the youngest and most diligent of artists, and most forcibly perhaps of Carl Hermann, like Anna Mehlig, a pupil in the Stuttgart Conservatory, 'There is something in the young man,' he said with emphasis. So he chatted in the most genial way of things great and small, as if he were not one of the world's geniuses, and we two little insignificant nobodies sitting before him, overcome with a consciousness of his greatness and our nothingness, yet quite happy and at ease, as every one must be who comes within the sphere of his gracious kindliness.
"Suddenly he rose and went to his writing-table, and, with one of his long, sweet smiles, so attractive in a man of his age—but why shouldn't a man know how to smile long, sweet smiles who has had innumerable thrilling romantic experiences with the sex that has always adored him?—he took a bunch of roses from a glass on his table and brought it to us. Whether to kiss his hand or fall on our knees we did not quite know; but, America being less given than many lands to emotional demonstration, we smiled back with composure, and appeared, no doubt, as if we were accustomed from earliest youth to distinguished marks of favour from the world's great ones.
"But the truth is we were not. And these roses which stood on Liszt's writing-table by his MS. music, presented by the hand that has made him famous, are already pressing and will be kept among our penates, except one, perhaps, that will be distributed leaf by leaf to hero-worshipping friends, with date and appropriate inscriptions on the sheet where it rests. How amiable he was, indeed! The roses were much, but something was to come. The Meister played to us. For this we had not even dared to hope during our first visit. No one, of course, ever asks him to play, and whether he does or not depends wholly on his mood. It was beautiful to sit there close by him, the soft lawns and trees, framed by the open casement, making a background for the tall figure, the long, peculiar hands wandering over the keys, the face full of intellect and power. And how he smiles as he plays! We fancied at first in our own simplicity that he was smiling at us, but later it seemed merely the music in his soul illuminating his countenance. His whole face changes and gleams, and grows majestic, revealing the master-spirit as his hands caress while they master the keys. With harrowing experiences of the difficulty of Liszt's compositions, we anticipated, as he began, something that would thunder and crash and teach us what pigmies we were; but as an exquisitely soft melody filled the room, and tones came like whispers to our hearts, and a theme drawn with a tender, magical touch brought pictures and dreams of the past before us, we actually forgot where we were, forgot that the white-haired man was the famous Liszt, forgot to speak as the last faint chord died away, and sat in utter silence, quite lost to our surroundings, with unseeing eyes gazing out through the casement.
"At last he rose, took our hands kindly, and said, 'That is how I play when I am suffering from a cold as at present.' We asked if he had been improvising, or if what he played was already printed. 'It was only a little nocturne,' he said. 'It sounded like a sweet remembrance.' 'And was that,' he replied cordially. Then fearing to disturb him too long, and feeling we had been crowned with favours, we made our adieux, receiving a kind invitation to come the following day and hear the young artists who cluster around him here, some of whom he informed us played 'famos.' And after we had left him he followed us out to the stairway to repeat his invitation and say another gracious word or two. And we went off to drive through Weimar, and only half observed its pleasant homely streets, its flat, uninteresting, yet friendly aspect, its really charming park—so Lisztified we were, as a friend calls our state of mind. The place has, indeed, little to charm the stranger now, except the memories of Goethe and Schiller and all the famous literary stars who once made it glorious, and the presence of Liszt."
The lives of musicians are, in general, so devoid of extraordinary incident, that the relation of them is calculated more to instruct than amuse.
That of Liszt, however, was an exception to the rule. His adventures seemed to have been so many and so various as almost to encourage a belief that in describing them his literary admirers often used the pen of romance.