'great, unique, glorious friend, when the 'you
gives way, German fasliion, to the familiar ' thou,'
the mutual position of the friends is reversed.
Wagner sits on liis throne laying down the law in a
dictatorial though by no means arrogant fashion,
while Liszt speaks as it were with bated breath,
accepts the dicta of the oracle as he would the
dogmas of the Church of Rome, and apologises most
humbly when he traverses Wagner's gigantic schemes
with a piece of practical advice. This is all the
more remarkable, because in his dealings with other
folks Liszt was by no means humble, or wanting in
self-assertion. Although less uncompromising in
Ills convictions than Wagner, he had that contempt
for arrogant mediocrity, social overbearing, and com-
mercialism generally, which distinguish the higli-
minded artist from the mere handicraftsman, and
Nature had gifted him with a tongue and with a pen
quite equal to ordinary occasions. People who
knew Liszt only in liis latter years, or who saw him
in London with a stereotyped beneolent smile on
his features, could scarcely have guessed at this side
of liis nature. When lie sat at the Royal Academy
listening patiently to a long-winded speech by Sir
George Macfarren, of which he did not understand
a single w'ord, ^vhen he allowed himself to be
dragged from one concert to the other, and to be
exhibited to the vulgar gaze for the benefit of those
who thus chose to exhibit him, he looked the
very picture of a benign old gentleman enjoying
liimself and being only too glad to give enjoy-
ment to othei's. But those who had known him
in former years, who had seen his eyes, now
dimmed by age, rolling in a fine frenzy of indig-
nation, knew that that smile was not altogether
of the benignant order, that there was in it a good
deal of sarcasm, and of a keen j^erception of the
vulgarity and selfishness of the world. Let those
who doubt this conjecture read the painstaking-
biographical work by Fraulein Ramann, where tlK
will find amusing accounts of how Liszt got,
familiarly speaking, into hot water with the Italian
press, how rudely he behaved to the French king,
Louis Philippe, in whom he discovered the bane of
the July revolution, and the embodiment of well-
nourished bourgeoisdoni; how he snubbed Princess
Metternich when. she insolently spoke of a musician
as if he were a tradesman. Perhaps his English
admirers would not have been quite so enthusiastic
in 1887 had they had cognisance of an incident
which happened more than forty years before, and
has not been recorded by any biographer, although
I have it on the authority of an eye and ear witness.
It was during Liszt's former visit to this country that
lie gave;i splendid breakfast at Verrev's in Regent
Street. Many jnusicians and musical critics had
been invited, and at the end of the repast speeches
were made and toasts jiro posed after the manner of
the country. Liszt at the time had no particular
.sympathy for England, where fashionable drawing-
rooms were open to him, but where a jiart of the
press treated him with marked hostility, and the
general public with indifference. Whilst smarting
under this feeling, Liszt made a speech in which he
referred to England as la ijep'imere de la MMiocriU,
the hot-bed of mediocrity, as we should say. No
wonder that after this the attacks on him grew more
pungent than ever, and that nearly half a century
elapsed before he again set foot on English ground.
^Vlien that event happened he came on a visit of
reconciliation, general peace, and good-will;he was
surrounded by admirers; handkerchiefs waved; voices
were raised to a pa'an of enthusiasm whenever his
venerable face, surrounded by a halo of flowing white
liair, appeared in a concert-room, and even the very
cabmen in the street ga^'e three cheers for the
' Habby Liszt. By this time he, and fortunately
every one else, had forgotten all about the ' hot-bed
of mediocrity. Moreover, Liszt used always to say
that if he had not been a nuisician he would have
been the greatest diplomatist in Europe, and diplo-
macy, as we know, grows upon one with growing
age.
In his attitude to AAagner there is, however, no
trace of diplomacy; it presents simply the beautiful
and rare spectacle of a great man having met with
a greater man, and acknowledging the fact in a
natural and most imafFected manner, and without
a shadow of that jealousy which such superiority
might hae excited in a less noble and unselfish
mind. Let it be added in justice to Wagner that
he on his part did by no means assume the airs of a
niightv man sjieaking to an inferior being. On the
contrary, he is most eager to gixe back to Liszt
friendship for friendship, admiration for admiration.
^^'^hen he does, as I saidbefore, lay down the law, it
is done in the most unconscious, unassuming niamier,
merely because he is full of his subject, and feels
that such conviction as his nuist be founded on
eternal and incontroertible truth.
Altogether it is a matter for discussion — although
such discussion would have ajipeared mean both to
^agner and Liszt — which of the two men profited
most by their unparalleled friendship. Liszt supplied
"Wagner with money; he produced his Lohengrin;
lie made Weimar the centre of a A'^agner cult from
which ' the music of the future ' went forth and
spread to the confines of the earth. In all these
things Wagner had no return to make; he had no
money to give; neither tlid Liszt want any money;
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THE SCOTTISH ART REVIEW
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