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Fragments of an Autobiography

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Title: Fragments of an Autobiography

Author: Felix Moscheles


        
Release date: July 16, 2010 [eBook #33185]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRAGMENTS OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Internet Archive.)








Fragments of an Autobiography

DEDICATED TO MY WIFE

[Illustration: Charlotte Moscheles]




Fragments
of an
Autobiography

BY
FELIX MOSCHELES
AUTHOR OF "IN BOHEMIA WITH DU MAURIER," ETC.

London
JAMES NISBET & CO., LTD.
21 BERNERS STREET
1899

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press




PREFACE


I have often found it hard to read a preface; much harder do I find it
to-day to write one. If I do so, it is because it gives me an
opportunity of owning that I have strung these my reminiscences together
most unceremoniously and unsystematically. They are to be taken only as
"Fragments of an Autobiography," very much on the same lines as the
first volume which recorded my adventures in Bohemia with Du Maurier. If
the reader, thus duly forewarned, elects to follow me over the uneven
road, he will, I trust, not mind a little jolting. If, however, he
judges that the gaps and omissions in my life-story are unjustifiable,
he must not be surprised should I attempt to set things right in a third
volume. I should be all the more inclined to do so as there are some
other fragments and segments waiting to be pieced together which are
connected with the brightest days of my life.

The writing of the present chapters has often been a source of genuine
pleasure to me, for I say with Bolingbroke in _Richard II_.: "I count
myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good
friends."

And now that I have come to a full stop, I am left in that pleasant
frame of mind in which I would fain believe in the proverbial kindness
of the reader--that deity from times immemorial appealed to by the
preface-writer,--a frame of mind unduly optimistic perhaps, but which
emboldens me to hope that I may find some new friends amongst those who
will care to read what I have to say about the old ones.

F. M.

LONDON, _February 1899_.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

        PAGE

EARLY IMPRESSIONS                                                 1

CHAPTER II

WILL YOU SIT FOR ME, FRIDA?                                      58

CHAPTER III

LEIPSIC IN 1847 AND 1848--MENDELSSOHN'S DEATH                    92

CHAPTER IV

MY FIRST COMMISSION                                             110

CHAPTER V

CLAUDE RAOUL DUPONT                                             116

CHAPTER VI

A TRIP TO AMERICA IN 1883                                       208

CHAPTER VII

GROVER CLEVELAND "VIEWED"                                       234

CHAPTER VIII

GIUSEPPE MAZZINI                                                246

CHAPTER IX

ROSSINI                                                         271

CHAPTER X

PARIS AFTER THE COMMUNE                                         300

CHAPTER XI

SOME INCIDENTS OF ROBERT BROWNING'S VISITS TO THE STUDIO        317




FRAGMENTS OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY




CHAPTER I

EARLY IMPRESSIONS


I well remember the terrors of a certain night when the wind was howling
and the rain was beating down in torrents over the arid plains of the
Lüneburger Haide; between them they had blown or blotted out the
flickering lights of a heavy, lumbering travelling carriage such as one
used to hire in the so-called good old times. The horses were plunging
in the mire, the postillion was swearing, and a very small boy was
howling. That boy was I, and the incident marks my first entrance into
that conscious life which registers events in our memories. Not that I
exactly remember what happened, and how we got out of the ankle-deep
mud, and finally reached our destination; but I have no doubt that my
father and the "brother-in-law," as the German postillion was addressed
in those days, had to get the wheels out of the ruts as best they could
without assistance, for there was no traveller, weary or otherwise, of
the regulation first-chapter pattern, to come to the rescue.

No--I remember but little of it, but I have lived it all over again
every time I have heard the dramatic strains of Schubert's Erl-king.
Great artists, gifted with the power of song, have depicted the whole
scene to me in thrilling accents; dear old Rubinstein, the friend, alas,
I lost all too soon--grand old Rubinstein, the master whose magic touch
swept the keyboard as the hurricane sweeps the plain--could conjure up
visions of a misty past in my mind. "My father, my father," I could have
cried, as the Erl-king of Pianists pursued the doomed child with his
giant strides and unrelenting touch, alternately letting loose the
elements to rage in maddening tumult, and drawing uncanny whispers from
his weird instrument.

Whatever I may have been prompted to cry when under the spell of
Rubinstein's art, I do not think I invoked my father's aid on that night
upon the heath; it was more likely "My mother, my mother," I called, and
she just protected me, and so, fortunately for me, it all ended happily,
and: "In her arms the child was _not_ dead," but cried itself to sleep,
and was put back into the little hammock that was slung across from side
to side of our old-fashioned vehicle, and that temporarily replaced my
cradle in 3 Chester Place, Regent's Park, London, the house I was born
in.

My father was on a concert tour in Germany, reaping laurels and golden
harvests, such as were rarely heard of in those days. From his wife he
never parted if he could help it, even for a short time, and by way of
an encumbrance he had on this occasion taken, besides the necessary
luggage, us children--I think there were three of us then--and a little
dumb keyboard on which he used to exercise his fingers to keep them up
to concert pitch when pianos were out of reach. I hadn't seen any of
those little finger-trainers for years, when I came across one on Robert
Browning's writing-table; he always kept it by his side, and I wondered
whether he used it to stimulate the fingers that had to keep pace with
the poet's ever-flowing thoughts. But my earliest recollections are
connected, not with dumb keyboards, but with very full-sounding and
eloquent ones. My father was ever happiest when at the piano or
composing. He was interested, oh yes, much interested in the sister
arts, in science and politics, but he had a way of disappearing after a
while when such matters were being discussed, or of getting lost when we
had set out conscientiously to do museums or churches in Venice or
Antwerp, or to visit crypts, shrines, bones of ancestors, and other
historical relics above and below ground. We knew we should find him at
home at the piano, or pen in hand composing, that is, if he had not
perchance been stopped on the way by the sounds of music in some
attractive shape. It was quite enough for him to hear such sounds
proceeding from an open window, to make for the door, ring the bell, and
ask for the "Maestro" or the "Herr Kapellmeister." He would introduce
himself, and presently be making friends on a sound musical basis with
his colleague. It would sometimes lead to a continental hug of the
warmest description, when the surprised native would discover that his
visitor was _the_ pianist.

Sometimes my father did not wait for that finishing touch, as when on
one occasion he invaded the room of an ill-fated lover of music. It was
at Tetschen, on a journey through Saxony and Bohemia; we arrived one
evening at the little hotel of that place, tired and hungry, and
thinking only of supper and a good night's rest. Scarcely had we settled
down to the former, when, separated from us only by a wooden partition,
a neighbour commenced operations on the piano, slowly and carefully
unwinding one bar after the other of that most brilliant of pieces,
Weber's "Invitation à la Valse." "Dass dich das Mäuserle beisse!"
exclaims my father, in terrible earnest. "May the little mouse bite
you!" That was a favourite expression of his, when he found himself
suddenly impelled to denounce somebody or something, and, as he
accentuated it, it always seemed amply to replace those naughty words
which are not admissible in daily life, and may only be used--and that,
to be sure, for our benefit--on Sundays by the exponents of the
Christian dogma.

The servant-girl was summoned, and she explained that the neighbour
usually began at that time, and was in the habit of playing several
hours. "Dass dich das Mäuserle" muttered my father with suppressed rage;
"Dass dich" ... and with that he rushed out of the room. What would
happen? We were about to tremble, when a meek, respectful knock at the
neighbour's door happily reassured us. "Herein"--Come in. Enter my
father suavely apologising for the interruption--we hear it all through
the thin partition. He, too, is a lover of music; may he as such be
allowed to listen for a while. Much pleased, the other offers him a
chair and resumes his performance; my father listens patiently, and
waits till the last bars are reached. "Delightful!" we hear him say, "a
beautiful piece, is it not? I once learnt it too; may I try your piano?"
And with that he pounces on the shaky old instrument, galvanising it
into new life, as he starts off at a furious rate, and gives vent to his
pent-up feelings in cascades of octaves and breakneck passages; never
had he played that most brilliant of pieces more brilliantly.
"Good-night," he said as he struck the last chord; "allow me once more
to apologise." "Ach! thus I shall never be able to play it," answered
the neighbour with a deep sigh, and he closed the piano, and spent the
rest of the evening a sadder but a quieter man.

But it was not often my father was allowed an opportunity of watching
over his own comforts. That was a duty my mother would not willingly
share with him or with anybody else; quite apart from the affection she
lavished on the husband, there was the tribute of respect she paid to
the artist. His was a privileged position, she held, and his path should
be kept clear of all annoyance. Petty troubles, at any rate, should not
approach him, nor the serious ones either if it was within her power to
shield him from them; if not, she would contrive to take the larger
share of the burden upon herself.

From our earliest days, we children were trained to be on our best
behaviour when our father came home, whatever our next best might have
been previously. We were mostly happy little listeners when he was at
the piano, and if he stopped too long for our juvenile faculties of
enjoyment, why, our happiness gradually took the shape of respect for
the musical function. It even turned into something akin to awe when he
was composing. At such times I would not have whistled within his
hearing to save my life. A wholesome fear of the Mäuserles that would
assuredly sweep down upon me, if I disturbed the peace, would, I
daresay, in a great measure account for my praiseworthy attitude, but,
apart from any such practical considerations, it was the mystery
connected with the evolution of the beautiful in art, which, from the
first, held me in subjection.

The whooping-cough with which one of us children started, rapidly
communicating it to the others, was also regulated in its outbursts with
due regard to my father's peace. Whilst the fit was on us, it was a
source of particular enjoyment to my sisters and myself, but we never
freely indulged in it when my father was near. At other times we would
come together, and wait for one another till the spirit moved us to
whoop. Then I would wield the bâton in imitation of my betters at the
conductor's desk, and we would have our solos and ensemble-pieces, our
ritardandos and prestissimos, producing unexpected effects, and with
the limited means at our disposal, making what I recollect as a very
attractive and interesting performance. Edifying as it should have been
to a parent, my mother could at first not see it in that light, but she
had finally to give in, and to acknowledge that it was a bad cough that
whooped no good.

I was an only son--an elder brother died some years before I was
born--and it was but natural that my mother should look with indulgence
on my delinquencies. I must sometimes have tried her and those around me
sorely, as, for instance, when I hanged my little sister's favourite
doll Anna Maria, from a knob of the chest of drawers, there to remain
until she be dead.

Clara--that was my sister's name--was of a warm temperament, and fought
for the release of her wax baby with all the passionate energy of the
maternal instinct. I had to give way and cut down the victim, and then,
all other means to pacify her having failed, I appealed to her
imagination, and persuaded her to play at my having killed her in the
battle we had just fought; it would be such a surprise for mamma. Ever
sharp and quick as she was, she at once saw the far-reaching
possibilities of my scheme, and allowed herself to be wrapped up in a
bedsheet, as in a shroud, and to be laid out stiff and rigid as a
corpse. I pulled down the blinds and shut the shutters; then I lit a
candle which I placed by her side; when all was ready, I hid in a
cupboard and set up a dismal wail that soon brought my mother to the
spot. The effect upon her was all I could have desired, perhaps more
so, for the first surprise once over, she expressed her disapproval of
my conduct in terms suitable to the occasion, and thus quite spoilt the
pleasure I had taken in the whole thing.

My mother was a remarkable woman,--a "lovely" woman, to use the word as
the Americans do when they want a single epithet to describe alike the
beauty of the body and the beauty of the soul, a word that shall tell of
the brightness of the intellect and suggest the qualities of the heart.

There are those who think that when it comes to the selection of
epithets applicable to a mother, however distinguished or worthy she may
have been, the son is not the person to entrust with that selection.
Perhaps they are right, and if in this case they care to do so, they
must look round for corroborative evidence in her books. It is just
their fault if they have never read them, or if they have never heard of
her as Felix Mendelssohn's grandmother, a character in which she
appeared with great advantage to the grandson when she was twenty-four,
and he as a young man of nineteen paid his first visit to England. And
it is just their loss if they never saw the jet-black plaits as she wore
them coiled around her head when she was young, or the mass of silky,
snow-white hair of her later days that, when set free, would cascade
over and far below the shoulders that bore the weight of fourscore
years. On her face Time had left its mark. Every line, every wrinkle
gave character and expression to her features, and bore testimony to the
truly beautiful life she had led. The picture reproduced on the first
page of these reminiscences I painted when she was in her 83rd year.

But the story of my mother's life must be written in another volume. For
the present I return to earlier recollections.

When I was ten years old, I was dubbed a big boy, too big to be tied to
his mother's apron-strings, and I was sent to King's College to rough it
with other boys. Opportunities were not wanting for the roughing it. On
one occasion a boy called me a German sausage, and I retorted by
punching his head; and on another I met a University College boy, called
him a stinkermalee, and got my head punched in return. What the
appellation precisely meant, I didn't know, nor do I now, but it was
then the particular term, opprobrious and insulting, we King's College
boys had adopted to express our unbounded contempt for the hated rivals
in Gower Street.

I was generally allowed to walk to school and back by myself, for it
formed part of the scheme of education mapped out for me by my parents,
that I should start fair and see life for myself. My way lay through St.
Giles's and the Seven Dials, and there I did see life and did hear
English too, English as she was spoke in those parts, perhaps as she is
to this day; but as I pass that way now, I don't come across it; the
hand of Time has been moving across the Seven Dials, and all the old
landmarks are gone. Where in these degenerate times can a schoolboy hope
to see a bear, a real big brown bear, in a cage just in front of a
barber's shop? only a penny-shave place to be sure, but bold in its
advertisement, a notice in sprawling big characters proclaiming the
superiority of the establishment's bear's grease over any other grease,
whatever its kind might be. Where is the schoolboy to-day who can
realise the pleasurable excitement of approaching such a caged bear in a
public thoroughfare close enough to test the beast's good nature under
circumstances of provocation, and his own adroitness in making good his
retreat in case of retaliation?

In the streets and alleys of St. Giles's I was first initiated into the
horrors of warfare, especially into the kind of warfare considered quite
legitimate in those days. A quarrel first;--passions roused--words
leading to blows. Coats off, fists clenched, and there, whilst two
savages were trying the issue as to which could knock the other into a
jelly, or, if luck would have it, into a coffin, we, the enlightened
public, formed a ring and stood round, nominally to see fair-play, but
virtually to back one or the other of the combatants, goading both on to
fight like devils, and finally rejoicing over the survival of the
fittest.

That kind of thing has been stopped in St. Giles's, but the devil
doesn't mind; there is so much legitimate warfare, slaughter and
massacre nowadays on a larger scale, that he is said to admit himself
that he gets over and above the share he originally claimed; and as for
the ring, why, that has grown apace; thanks to scientific progress, it
is iron-bound now with telegraphic wires, and is known by the euphonious
name of "the Concert of Europe."

How good man is, and how tender in his concern for his brother! More
than once I saw him pick up the battered jelly and carry it with
fraternal solicitude to the neighbouring chemist. How good we all are,
stitching at Red Cross badges, chartering ambulances, and sending the
hat round at the Mansion House and elsewhere to save the surviving
fittest from starvation!

The question of woman's rights--and wrongs--was also occasionally raised
and illustrated for my benefit in one or the other of the Seven Dials,
the object lesson sometimes delaying me and getting me into trouble for
being late at the _hic-hæc-hoc_ business in the Strand. I particularly
recollect a female fiend rushing after her wretched husband, who fled
down the street from her, and from the blood-stained poker she savagely
brandished.

But there were quieter corners too, not far from the lairs of the
vicious, a dear old printshop for one, just by St. Giles' Church. The
most tempting pictures were displayed in the windows: coloured prints of
stage-coaches, cockatoos, prize-fighters, and racehorses; lovely female
types, as originally published in Heath's Book of Beauty; there were
fashion-plates next to Bartolozzi's, not in fashion, and I daresay many
an undiscovered treasure besides. I used to spend my pennies on views of
London, little steel-plate engravings, printed on a sort of shiny
cardboard. Was it my innate love for London that made them so
attractive, or my equally innate love of architecture? Probably both. I
always was, and am still a cockney at heart, and as for the building
craze, that has been on me from that day to this. Certainly no boy ever
had such a collection of bricks as I had, and such a table to build on,
specially constructed with drawers and divisions for all sizes and forms
of my materials.

"I'm going to be an architect," I informed the old Duke of Cambridge on
a gala occasion when he rode up to our house. "Right you are, my boy,"
said the Duke. "You'll be too late to build me a house, but you can
build me a mausoleum." I've been planning mausoleums ever since, but
unfortunately, not being an architect, I never have had a commission in
that line. The Duke, who was an enthusiastic lover of music, had come on
that occasion specially interested to hear Bach's Concerto in G minor,
which my father played from a copy of the original manuscript he had
received from his friend Professor Fischhof, of Vienna.

But to return from Royalty to the plebeian quarter of St. Giles, I must
state that whatever of my pocket-money may have been invested in views
of London, it was not that printshop, but the Lowther Arcade, which
usually wrecked my finances. I could not resist the temptation which
that short cut from the Strand to Catherine Street offered; my money
went to the purchase of most fascinating articles, unfortunately at best
of a twopenny-halfpenny character, things of beauty irresistibly
suggesting themselves as presents for my sisters, things no girl should
be without, wax angels under glass globes, bottle imps, china
shepherdesses, or jumping frogs, the latter to be sprung upon the
recipient unexpectedly. I brought them home and confided to my mother
what bargains I had got. Unhappily the angels, frogs, imps, and the
rest, however effective at first, were not long lived, or they proved
themselves otherwise disappointing; so they were soon forgotten. Not so
their cost.

My mother had carefully kept account of my wasteful expenditure for some
weeks, and one day she confronted me with the sum total it had reached.
It actually came within measurable distance of half-a-crown, an amount I
had as yet never been able to call my own. I was overwhelmed by such
proofs of my recklessness, and henceforth resisted the wiles of the
Lowther Arcade. So the lesson was not lost on me; it sank deep into my
heart, whence I have on more than one occasion been able to bring it to
the surface. But I am bound to confess that I never was radically cured.
I have periodical relapses when the old craving comes upon me, and the
taste for beautifully fashioned angels, for china and for glass, and I
revel in a bargain, and exult when I have picked up something every girl
ought to have. Whilst the glorious fit is on, I am privileged to forget
all I learnt in the sum-total lesson.

My experiences in the Lowther Arcade were soon to be suddenly
interrupted, and for a long time it was even doubtful whether I should
ever again be able to put in an appearance in that place or anywhere
else. I caught the scarlet fever, not in the slums as it might be
thought, but at school, where a regular epidemic had broken out. Our
class-rooms in King's College were down in the basement, and those who
knew said that the outbreak was due to the fact that the filth-laden
river came right up to the feet of the grand old building, and washed
them dirty day and night; other wiseacres contended that it was more
likely to be the churchyard of St. Mary-le-Grand just opposite which had
done the mischief. As far as I can remember, nobody mentioned the
drains, which in those days had not yet come into notice and fashion,
and could do their level best for the multiplication of bacilli without
being hampered by meddlesome sanitary inspectors. Well, whatever may
have been the malignant source which poisoned me, it had done its work
thoroughly, and developed my scarlet fever in its most virulent form. It
was a terrible time I went through. I was at death's door, but
fortunately that sombre portal remained closed, and I was not bidden to
cross the grim threshold.

No, I was destined to live and to fight the battle of life with whatever
fighting powers I might possess. Later on I was to wrestle more than
once with the grim immortal who only spares each of us mortals till his
hour-glass tells him it is time to use his scythe. And if I wrestled
well and am here to tell the tale, it is because by my side watched day
and night that best of nurses, my mother.

I was never what is called a good patient, and to this day I am very
much averse to sending for the doctor. I quite feel he indeed is a
friend in need, and I do not wish to disparage his power for good, or to
underrate his skill and judgment, but as a rule I make a point of not
calling him in till I know what I want him to say. I think that doctors
nowadays are more agreeable than they were formerly; the great and
fashionable doctors, I mean. A man, to be up to date, had to be brief,
brusque, and bumptious. He seemed to have learnt his stronger English
from Dr. Johnson, and generally to have been trained in a Johnsonian
atmosphere. He had to say smart things that could be quoted and hawked
about, and to enunciate wise saws in imitation of the master whose
sayings are so unmercifully inflicted on us to this day. He was in a
hurry; he drove up in a big yellow carriage, and before the horses could
pull up, his tiger had sprung from the footboard, and was giving the
most tremendous double-knock, one evidently meant to awaken the dead, in
case medical assistance had come too late.

To pass muster, the doctor's natural kindness had to be concealed
beneath an outer coating of apparent roughness. Sometimes it was the
roughness that was concealed only by a transparent veneer of amiability.
Certain it is that in those days no doctor could look at a boy's tongue
without at once declaring that he stood in immediate need of a black
dose, and if that vile compound did not exceed every other mixture in
nastiness, he did not believe it would be efficacious. He revelled in
blue pills, and was happiest when he could pull out a little lancet and
bleed you, or send round a man with a complete set of sharp blades, to
do the thing wholesale, jerking them into some part of your precious
self, and pumping a given number of ounces out of it and into his
cupping-glasses.

All this is very ungrateful of me, for Dr. Stone was the best and
kindest of men--and very undutiful, for he was my godfather (Felix Stone
is my full name). To be sure he had a big yellow carriage, and a tiger
whose main ambition in life it seemed to be to knock his master's
patients up. To be sure Dr. Stone came coated with a veneer of
roughness, but it was skin-deep; true, he gave me as many black doses
and blue pills as he thought my robust constitution could stand, but in
addition to these he made me many beautiful presents--a silver mug
emblazoned with our family crest and the motto "Labore," a splendid
family Bible of about my own weight and size, a costly edition of
Byron's "Childe Harold" and ditto of Milton's "Paradise Lost and
Regained," and a number of other things doubly delightful and gratifying
to my juvenile mind, because they always came at least three or four
years before I knew how to use them.

My good godfather had ushered me into this world, from which
unfortunately he was himself called away before he had had many
opportunities of performing the duties he had undertaken when he pledged
himself to see to it that I should "renounce the devil and all his
works."

When after many weeks of hard fighting with the scarlet enemy, and after
having passed through various relapses and complications, I emerged from
the sick-room, I was taken to Brighton for a complete change of air.
There I soon found new life and strength. Dear old Brighton! I was to
find new life and strength there once more, thirty years later, when I
met the young lady who said she would--when I asked her to marry me.

My next station was Hamburg. I was sent there to get the benefit of a
thorough change of air, and to improve my German. It was shortly after
the terrible conflagration which had laid low a great part of the city.

The jagged walls, springing in fantastic forms from immense piles of
crumbling masonry and charred timber, had a weird fascination for me. I
was deeply in sympathy with my beloved friend Architecture, and deplored
the fate that had overtaken some of the best buildings, but at the same
time I was lost in admiration of the beauties, now picturesque, now
awe-inspiring, which the caprice of the destructive element had stamped
on crazy walls and tangled masses of wreckage.

I have since been similarly impressed; in Pompeii first, and again in
Paris, after the Commune; only to be sure the former scene of
devastation I saw neatly put in order and made presentable for the
visitor, whereas the latter was yet smoking and all besmirched with the
blood of the sorely visited Parisians.

My father had given a concert for the benefit of the sufferers in
Hamburg, and was able to contribute a sum of £643 to the relief fund
raised.

On my arrival I was received with open arms by my relatives. My
grandfather, Adolf Embden, had been staying with us more than once, and
he was particularly partial to his grandson, because he had a marked
predilection for England and everything that was English. He knew more
about British politics than most men born and bred in the country; he
read all the big speeches delivered in Parliament, identified himself
with the Whigs, and was a fervent disciple of Cobden and Bright. He did
his best to train me in the way I should go, and his methods were quite
congenial to my taste. We often took long walks together, and his
peripatetic teachings are pleasantly blended in my mind with the
half-way house at the corner of the Jungfernsteg and the Alster Bassin,
then occupied by Giosti Giovanoli, the confectioner. He trained me just
once too often, but that was in London, in a shop near Oxford Circus,
and it was a Bath bun that made me restless. That shop was painted green
and gold, and to this day I would not eat on green and gold premises if
I were starving.

In Hamburg I was welcomed, too, by uncles and aunts, first and second
cousins, male and female, and by a strong contingent of grandaunts. I am
aware that most people have quite as many relatives of their own as they
need for home consumption, and that being so, they are not pleasantly
disposed towards the family history of their friends. So I mean to use
my relatives sparingly, and only to bring them in where they are
associated with things I well remember. My mother has penned most
characteristic sketches of many of those worthy personalities in a MS.
she has entitled "Early Recollections," and the grandaunts hold a
prominent place in those papers; but for the reason just given, I
refrain from transcribing her graphic descriptions of their doings. I
would, however, record my own boyish impressions, to the effect that
one or two of my grandaunts were a caution to rattle-snakes. I have
learned since to see that they were nothing of the kind, but just old
ladies of marked originality. It took some time before I could get to
like being loved by them; I preferred making faces behind their backs, a
pastime which I was joined in by a cousin about my own age. Cousin Carl
got into trouble oftener than I did, and had more reason to regret it,
for in one of the drawers of an old-fashioned mahogany secretary his
father kept an orthodox cane which he would produce on special
occasions--such were the unchallenged methods of training in those days.
My uncle was the best of men, anxious only to chastise for the good of
the young delinquent, whom he tenderly loved, but he might have saved
himself the trouble, for poor Cousin Carl was never to reap the benefit
of his training. He had at no time been robust, and was not to live
long. That winter of 1842 was looking about for victims. The fearful
mornings, when we had to get up in the dark, and wash by the flicker of
a tallow candle--wash, that is if we succeeded in hacking up the ice in
the jug, and in finding some water at the bottom of it--those fearful
mornings proved too much for him. Poor Carl's faces, as he made them
behind people's backs, grew longer and longer, his cough grew hollower
and hollower, and he soon went to rest where there are no canes and no
tallow dips, and all is peace, and even one's grandaunts are seraphs.

The sad event did not, however, take place during my stay in Hamburg. I
spent some six or eight months with my uncle and aunt. She, my Tante
Jaques, was my mother's only sister, and was deeply attached to her; on
me she lavished unvarying kindness and affection. My cousins, all older
than myself, were delighted to have the "little Englishman" in the
house, and the friendship we struck up then has lasted through life.

One of the grandaunts was a sister of Heinrich Heine, the poet. She had
married into the Embden family, and so Heinrich was a sort of cousin of
my mother's. They saw a good deal of one another when my mother was in
her teens, and he was a dreamy youth whom she and the other girls of the
family circle delighted to chaff. His frequent headaches they not
incorrectly ascribed to his mode of living; to be sure, they said, he
looked pale and interesting, but that was only because he had eaten too
much at yesterday's dinner party. "Now, what is the matter with you
again to-day?" said my mother as he sat down opposite her one morning
and watched her shelling peas. "How pale you are! it's that head again,
I suppose?" "Yes, Lottchen, I am ill; it is the head again." "That is
what you are always saying, but I'm sure it is not as bad as you make it
out to be. Come now, am I not right?" "O Lottchen," he said, "you do not
know how I suffer;" and as he sat there musing, she had not the heart
further to chaff him. When the next volume of his poems appeared shortly
afterwards, she knew what had passed through his mind on that occasion,
and perhaps on others when she had shown him friendly sympathy.

He writes:--

    "When past thy house at morning
      I take my way, to see
    Thy face, child, at the window
      Is deep delight to me.

    Thy dark-brown eyes seem asking
      As my sad, pale looks they scan,
    Who art thou, and what ails thee,
      Thou strange and woe-worn man!

    'I am a German poet,
      Through Germany widely known;
    When they name the names that are famous,
      With them they will name my own.

    'And what I ail, oh many,
      Dear little one, ail the same.
    When they name the worst of sorrows,
      Mine, too, they are sure to name.'"

Sometimes he was in livelier moods, as one day, when he, my grandfather,
and my mother were walking through the fields together, and were joined
by a remarkably dull doctor of philology, whose company was particularly
distasteful to Heine. Pointing to half-a-dozen cows and oxen that were
grazing close by, he said in an undertone: "I say, Lottchen, now there
are seven doctors on the meadow."

Salomon Heine, the poet's uncle, was a millionaire who spent his money
right royally and philanthropically; a man who owed his fortune to his
own exertions, and who, when he had made a million of marks for each of
his children--I forget how many he had--devoted the next million he
amassed to the foundation of a hospital. He was a delightful specimen
of an uncle, too, for he would spend his money philonepotically as well
as philanthropically. The nephew was ever ready to dive into the uncle's
purse; equally ready to make literary capital out of him and his
friends. Gumpel, another rich banker--we know him as Gumpelino--was his
pet aversion, and specially suggestive to him as a butt for his satire.
Gumpel, too, was a self-made man, a fact of which, however, he did not
like to be reminded, quite unlike old Heine, who loved to bring up the
subject to the annoyance of his friend, shouting across the table
stories of the early days when they came to Hamburg with their bundles
slung across their shoulders. To his nephew he was ever indulgent; he
was proud of his rising popularity, and as a rule was not appealed to in
vain when the young genius had got into money troubles. On one occasion,
though, he lost patience when he had given him a round sum wherewith to
defray the expenses of a journey to Norderney, a summer resort on the
coast of the North Sea. Instead of devoting the money to the purpose of
improving his health, he managed in one night to roll the round sum into
other people's pockets at the gaming tables. This time the uncle was
indignant, and Heinrich would probably never have gone to Norderney, and
consequently never have written the "Nordsee-Lieder," had not the
well-known firm of Hoffman & Campe come to the rescue with the necessary
funds, in consideration of which they stipulated he should write a
volume of songs for them.

In Hamburg I was sent to the Johanneum, a large public school. It was
rather hard, after having been called a German sausage in England, to be
derided as an English "Rossbiff" or "Shonebool," which was meant for
John Bull. The whole class roared with laughter when I rose for the
first time to decline [Greek: hê Mohysa], pronouncing the defunct Greek
language as it was spoken in King's College, and the jeers of that whole
class so galled and stung me that I wished I could kill all German boys
at a stroke, or at least maim those despicable ones within my reach for
life. It was well I could not act upon the impulse, for many a German
boy of that day was to be a staunch friend to me in after life. I had my
troubles in those Teutonic school-days, and I thought the proceedings
monotonous, but still there was pleasurable excitement to be had
occasionally, as when old Hummel came along--a half-witted water-carrier
whom every bad boy in Hamburg knew and hooted. Three words we would
shout in his face, three words that meant absolutely nothing, but that
sounded worse than any bad language I had ever heard. He was a shaky old
man, and the water-pails suspended from his shoulders prevented his
running after us, and so we could indulge with impunity in the
exhilarating sport of mocking him to the fullest extent our wicked
little human hearts desired.

I have also a pleasant recollection of caterpillar-hunting; we were
spending the summer near Hamburg in a rustic retreat, and a regular
plague of these insects made life a burden to some members of the
family. They were larger than ordinary caterpillars and more hairy, and
they were so numerous that much thought and care had to be bestowed on
the methods of protecting ourselves against them; for they did not
confine themselves to the garden, they made no difference between
vegetable produce and grand-aunts, and would mistake the best bonnets of
those worthies for cabbage leaves. There was even a rumour that one of
these slimy crawlers had been crushed out of existence by my
grandest-aunt, who chanced to be the heaviest one too. How that
caterpillar found its way between that lady's bed-sheets, and whether it
did so with or without assistance, was fortunately never ascertained,
and as discreet silence has been maintained on the subject for years, it
is not for me to solve the mystery to-day.

After an absence of some six or eight months I returned to London, to
that 3 Chester Place so full of memories, personal and artistic.

There were quite as many infant prodigies in those days as there are
now; little exotic plants, forced in artistic hothouses, artificially
developed, and prematurely produced in drawing-rooms and concert halls;
glittering little shooting-stars, nine-days' wonders, to be soon
forgotten, and ere long to be buried.

But then, there were also wonder-children, as the Germans call them, who
thrived and lived, and who seemed to combine in themselves all the
qualities that had belonged to the little victims of forced training.
Such a one was Joachim. He first appeared in public when he was seven;
five years later be played in Leipsic at Madame Viardot's concert; and
when he was not yet fourteen he gathered his first laurels in London at
the Philharmonic. That year--it was 1844--Mendelssohn was in England,
and mightily interested in the young violinist. One evening, after
singing at our house, Mendelssohn wanted to take him to a musical party;
a pair of gloves were deemed necessary to make him presentable, and we
two boys were sent out to get them; we had a walk, and a talk besides,
and I remember thinking what a nice sort of sensible boy he was; no
nonsense about him and no affectation; not like the other clever ones I
knew. The gloves we bought in a little shop in Albany Street, Regent's
Park, and as these were the first pair of English gloves that Joseph
wore, I duly record the historical fact for the benefit of all those who
have at one time or the other been under the spell of the fingers we
fitted that evening.

When two years later we met in Leipsic, it so happened that I was
suddenly fired with the desire to play the violin too. My friend Joseph
was quite ready to teach me, and we started operations, but two or three
lessons were sufficient to convince him and me, that mine was an unholy
desire, which, if gratified, would give me the power of inflicting much
suffering on my fellow-creatures, and which therefore was calculated to
lead me into trouble. So we gave it up, and Joachim has had to rely on
other pupils for his reputation as a teacher.

Liszt too had been a juvenile phenomenon, but had long arrived at full
maturity at the time I first remember him. I was then about ten, and he
some twenty years older. I think I never knew anybody so calculated to
fascinate man, woman, or child. He generally spoke in French, which I
did not understand, but I had to listen to every word. His voice alone
held me spell-bound; it rose and fell like a big wave, and I could tell
that something unusual was going on; that voice was evidently scattering
thought as the big wave scatters spray, and those clear-cut features of
his were each in turn accentuating and emphasising his words. His grand
leonine mane fascinated me as it started from the lofty forehead, and
bounded Niagara-like with one leap to the nape of the neck.

My early recollections of his playing are rather limited. As a boy I was
mainly impressed by his long chord-grasping fingers, contrasting as they
did with my father's small, velvety hand. To _see_ him play was quite as
much as I could do, without particularly attending to what he played, to
watch his hands fly up from one set of notes and pounce down on another,
and generally to lie in wait for the outward manifestations of his
genius. Later on I grew accustomed to the grand young man's ways, and
just knelt at his shrine as everybody else did.

My father was not the least outspoken of his admirers. In the early days
he mentions him as "that rare art-phenomenon," and tells how "he played
Hummel's Septet with the most perfect execution, storming occasionally
like a Titan, but still in the main free from extravagance." Later on,
at the Musical Festival held in Bonn, he describes him as "the absolute
monarch, by virtue of his princely gifts, outshining all else."

Half a century ago playing _à quatre mains_ was much more popular than
it is now; more pieces were written and more pianoforte arrangements
were made for two performers. The full-fledged pianist of to-day thinks
he is quite able to do the work of two, and sees no reason why he should
share the keyboard with another; so he prefers to keep the whole
function in his own hands. Formerly he was satisfied to give a concert;
the very word implied concerted action of several artists; now he
announces the one-man show called a Recital, in which he stars and
shines by himself. He scorns assistance, for he wishes it to be
understood that he can get through the most formidable programme without
breaking down, and that he can rely on his ironclad instrument to hold
out with him and lead him triumphantly to the finale.

Well, the great virtuosi of my early days certainly loved playing
together, and many are the instances of such joint performances, both in
private and in public, which I recollect. How my father enjoyed playing
with Liszt he records when he says: "It was a genuine treat to draw
sparks from the piano as we dashed along together. When we are harnessed
together in a duet we make a very good pair; Apollo drives us without a
whip."

If, as my father assumes, Apollo was really the driver on occasions of
that kind, I feel sure that his favourite team must have been
Mendelssohn and Moscheles; they certainly enjoyed being in harness
together, sometimes playing, and sometimes improvising. Occasionally the
humour of the moment would lead them to compose together, as when one
evening they planned a piece for two performers to be played by them
three days later at a concert my father had announced. The Gipsies'
March from Weber's "Preziosa" being chosen as a subject for variations,
a general scheme was agreed upon, and the parts were distributed. "I
will write a variation in minor and growl in the bass," said
Mendelssohn. "Will you do a brilliant one in major in the treble?" It
was settled that the Introduction and first and second variations should
fall to Mendelssohn's lot, the third and fourth to my father's. The
finale they shared in, Mendelssohn starting with an allegro movement,
and my father following with a "più-lento." Two days later they had a
hurried rehearsal, and on the following day they played the concertante
variations, "composed expressly for this occasion," as the programme had
it, "and performed on Erard's new patent-action grand pianoforte."
Nobody noticed that the piece had been only sketched, and that each of
the performers was allowed to improvise in his own solo, till at certain
passages agreed upon, both met again in due harmony. The _Morning Post_
of the day tells us that "the subject was treated in the most profound
and effective manner by each, and executed so brilliantly that the most
rapturous plaudits were elicited from the delighted company."

Mendelssohn himself in a letter gives a graphic account of a rehearsal
held at Clementi's pianoforte factory, when the two friends played his
"Double Concerto in E."

"It was great fun," he says; "no one can have an idea how Moscheles and
I coquetted together on the piano--how the one constantly imitated the
other, and how sweet we were. Moscheles plays the last movement with
wonderful brilliancy; the runs drop from his fingers like magic. When it
was over, all said it was a pity that we had made no cadenza; so I at
once hit upon a passage in the first part of the last Tutti, where the
orchestra has a pause, and Moscheles had, _nolens volens_, to comply,
and compose a grand cadenza. We now deliberated amid a thousand jokes
whether the small last solo should remain in its place, since, of
course, the people would applaud the cadenza. 'We must have a bit of
Tutti between the cadenza and the solo,' said I. 'How long are they to
clap their hands?' asked Moscheles. 'Ten minutes, I daresay,' said I.
Moscheles beat me down to five. I promised to supply a Tutti; and so we
took the measure, embroidered, turned and padded, put in sleeves _à la_
Mameluke, and at last, with our tailoring, produced a brilliant
concerto. We shall have another rehearsal to-day; it will be quite a
picnic, for Moscheles brings the cadenza and I the Tutti."

That golden thread of "great fun," as he calls it, goes through the
history of Mendelssohn's life. It intertwined itself with the sensitive
fibres of his nature, thus becoming an element of strength, a factor
that illuminated his path and spread bright sunshine wherever he went.
In fact I always thought one of the most delightful traits of his
character was a certain naïveté, which enabled him to appreciate the
humour of a situation, and thoroughly to enjoy it with his friends. He
would turn some trivial incident to the happiest account, and in his own
peculiarly genial way, make it the starting-point for a standing joke,
or a winged word, to be handed down from generation to generation in the
families of his friends.

Amongst the many drawings of his we treasure in the family is one
humorously illustrating my father's works. It takes the shape of an
arabesque, artistically framing some lines written for the occasion of
his birthday by Klingemann. A second verse was composed for a subsequent
birthday.

When in later years, and with a view to publication, I ventured to ask
Robert Browning for an English version of those lines, he, with his
usual kindness, sent me the following letter:--

     "29 DE VERE GARDENS,

      _Nov. 30, '87_.

     "MY DEAR MOSCHELES,--Pray forgive my delay in doing the little
     piece of business with which you entrusted me: an unexpected claim
     on my mornings interfered with it till just now. Will this answer
     your purpose anyhow?--

    "'Hail to the man who upwards strives
      Ever in happy unconcern:
    Whom neither blame nor praise contrives
      From his own nature's path to turn.

    On, and still on, the journey went,
      Yet has he kept us all in view,
    Working in age with youth's intent,
      In living--fresh, in loving--true.'

     "Were my version but as true to the original as your father's life
     was to his noble ideal, it would be good indeed. As it is, accept
     the best of yours truly ever,

     ROBERT BROWNING."

Having started on my recollections of Mendelssohn, I am somewhat
perplexed to know how many or how few of them I should record here. So
much has been published about him, first by my mother in "The Life of
Moscheles,"[1] where she has used my father's diaries and
correspondence, and then by myself, when I translated and edited
Mendelssohn's letters to my parents,[2] that perhaps I ought not to run
the risk of telling what is already known. But, on the other hand,
Mendelssohn plays so prominent a part in my early recollections, that I
cannot write these without attempting to portray the principal figure,
my father's most intimate friend and my very dear godfather.

I shall, at any rate, have to exercise due discretion and care, for
Mendelssohn, and what he said and did, was such a constant theme of
conversation in our family, that I grew up knowing my parents' friend
nearly as well as they did themselves, and I may consider myself
fortunate if, in recording my earliest impressions, I do not find myself
remembering things that happened before I was born.

The very first letter which connects me with Mendelssohn is the one in
which he congratulates my parents on the arrival of a son and heir. He
heads it with a pen-and-ink drawing, representing a diminutive baby in a
cradle, surrounded by all the instruments of the orchestra.

"Here they are, dear Moscheles," he says, "wind instruments and fiddles,
for the son and heir must not be kept waiting till I come--he must have
a cradle song, with drums and trumpets and janissary music; fiddles
alone are not nearly lively enough. May every happiness and joy and
blessing attend the little stranger; may he be prosperous, may he do
well whatever he does, and may it fare well with him in the world!

"So he is to be called Felix, is he? How nice and kind of you to make
him my godchild, _in formâ_! The first present his godfather makes him
is the above entire orchestra; it is to accompany him through life--the
trumpets when he wishes to become famous, the flutes when he falls in
love, the cymbals when he grows a beard; the pianoforte explains itself,
and should people ever play him false, as will happen to the best of us,
there stand the kettle-drums and the big-drum in the background.

"Dear me! I am ever so happy when I think of your happiness, and of the
time when I shall have my full share of it. By the end of April, at the
latest, I intend to be in London, and then we will duly name the boy,
and introduce him to the world at large. It will be grand!"

In a later letter he announces himself as arriving in June, "ready to
act as a godfather, to play, conduct, and even to be a genius."

He came, and I was duly christened Felix Stone Moscheles in St. Pancras
Church. Barry Cornwall wrote some lines commemorative of the occasion.
Alluding to the date of my birth, he begins:--

    1. (_February_).

    Speak low! the days are dear,
      Sing load! _A child is born!_
    Music, the maid, is watching near,
    To hide him in her bosom dear,
      From sights and sounds forlorn.
            Happy be his infant days!
            Happy be his after ways!
            Happy manhood! Happy age!
            Happy all his pilgrimage.


    2. (_June_).

    Breathe soft! the days grow mild,
      _The child hath gained a name!_
    Now sweet maid, Music! whisper wild
    Thy blessings on the new-named child,
      And lead him straight to fame.
            "_Felix_" should be "_happy_" ever,
            And his life be like a river,
            Sweetness, freshness, always bringing,
            And ever, ever, ever singing!

Well, the "sweet maid, Music" never led the new-named one "straight to
fame," nor did the child ever get there by any circuitous route, but
Felix was certainly "happy ever."

In this, my case, there certainly must have been something in a name,
for my good godfather endowed me with my full share of happiness.

In later years Berlioz wrote that well-known line of Horace's in my
album:--

    "Donec eris Felix, multos numerabis amicos."

(As long as you are happy you will number many friends.) And when I
reflect how much friendship I have enjoyed from the day of my
christening to the present hour, I feel certain that the name was of
good augury, and that Horace and Mendelssohn were right.

If the complete orchestra was the first godfather's present, the little
album was the second. It measures only six inches by four, but that
small compass holds much that is of interest. The book is full now; it
required about half a century to cover its pages, for they contain only
the autographs of such celebrities as were my personal friends.
Mendelssohn had appropriately inaugurated it with a composition, the
"Wiegenlied" (slumber-song), now so popular.

There are also two drawings by him, one of 3 Chester Place, Regent's
Park, and another of the Park close at hand. Mendelssohn must have sat
out of doors to make these very faithful transcripts of nature, and I
sometimes wonder how the street-boys of those days took it. Looking at
those contributions, one cannot help being struck by the care which he
bestowed on everything he did. His handwriting was always neat and
clear, with just enough of flourish and swing to give it originality.
His musical manuscripts vie in precision with the products of the
engraver's art, and again there is a marked analogy between his style of
drawing and the way in which he forms the letters of the alphabet, or
the notes of the scales. As one peruses his manuscripts, one finds
oneself admiring the artistic aspect of his well-balanced bars, and on
the other hand, the harmonious treatment of his drawings recalls the
appearance his pen gives to his scores. In the view he took of the
Regent's Park, the leaves, so delicately and yet so firmly pencilled,
seem to sway and rustle in unison with the sprightly melody of the
scherzo in the "Midsummer-Night's Dream," and just as that melody is
discreetly accompanied by the orchestra, so in the drawing, the houses,
the old Colosseum in the background, and the trees in the
middle-distance, are, one and all, made to keep their places, and
deferentially to play second fiddle to the rustling leaves.

In due course of time, and after full enjoyment of the Slumber Song, I
got out of my cradle and on to my legs, and it is from that stage in my
development that I really date my recollections of my godfather. Some
are hazy, others distinct. I am often surprised when I realise that he
was short of stature; to me, the small boy, he appeared very tall. I
looked upon him as my own special godfather, in whom I had a sort of
vested interest, and I showed my annoyance when I was not allowed to
monopolise him, or at least to remain near him. Being put to bed was at
best a hateful process; how much more so, then, when I was just happily
installed on my godfather's knee; occasions of that kind are connected
in my mind with vociferous protests, followed by ignominious expulsion.

There were, however, happier times soon to follow, times which recall to
me our exploits in the Park. He could throw my ball farther than anybody
else; and he could run faster too, but then, to be sure, for all that,
_I_ could catch him. There were pitched battles with snowballs, and
there was that memorable occasion when I got my first black eye. I
remember it came straight from the bat, but--to tell the truth--I was
never quite sure that Mendelssohn was in any way connected with that
historical event, correctly located though it is, in the Regent's Park.

Our indoor sports must have been pretty lively too, for on one occasion
my mother records how "in the evening Felix junior had such a tremendous
romp with his godfather, that the whole house shook." And she adds: "One
can scarcely realise that the man who would presently be improvising in
his grandest style, was the Felix senior, the king of games and romps."

One of my achievements, when I was a little boy in a black velvet
blouse, was the impersonation of what we called "the dead man"; the
dying man would have been more correct. From my earliest days I
evidently pitied the soldier dying a violent death on the battlefield.
Since then I have learnt to extend my commiseration to the tax-payer,
and to the many innocent victims of a barbarous and iniquitous system.
Well, the dying man in the blouse was stretched full length--say some
three feet--on the Brussels carpet. Mendelssohn or my father were at
the piano improvising a running accompaniment to my performance, and
between us we illustrated musically and dramatically the throes and
spasms of the expiring hero. I was much offended once, because they told
me I acted just like a little monkey; I did not know then, but I am
quite sure now, that behind my back they said in a very different tone,
admiring and affectionate: "He is _such_ a little monkey."

That black velvet blouse I particularly remember, because John Horsley,
now the veteran R. A., then but a rising artist, painted me in it; and
also because Hensel, Mendelssohn's brother-in-law, made a sketch of it
in my album, at my particular request, representing me on horseback.

What honours that garment might not further have attained I do not know,
had I not once for all checked its career by climbing over some freshly
painted green railings in the Park, and thus irreparably spoiling it.

The dead-man improvisations remind me of the marvellous way in which my
father and godfather would improvise together, playing _à quatre mains_,
or alternately, and pouring forth a never-failing stream of musical
ideas. I have spoken of it before, but it was in a preface, and who
reads a preface? So I may perhaps once more be allowed to describe it. A
subject started, it was caught up as if it were a shuttlecock; now one
of the players would seem to toss it up on high, or to keep it balanced
in mid-octaves with delicate touch. Then the other would take it in
hand, start it on classical lines, and develop it with profound
erudition, until perhaps the two joining together in new and brilliant
forms, would triumphantly carry it off to other spheres of sound. Four
hands there might be, but only one soul, so it seemed, as they would
catch with lightning speed at each other's ideas, each trying to
introduce subjects from the works of the other.

It was exciting to watch how the amicable contest would wax hot,
culminating occasionally in an outburst of merriment, when some
conflicting harmonies met in terrible collision. I see Mendelssohn's air
of triumph when he had succeeded in twisting a subject from a
composition of his own into a Moscheles theme, while the latter was
obliged to second him in the bass. But not for long. "Stop a minute,"
said the next few chords that my father struck. "There I have you, you
have taken the bait." Soon they would be again fraternising in perfect
harmonies, gradually leading up to the brilliant finale that sounded as
if it had been so written, revised and corrected, and were now being
interpreted from the score by two masters.

Besides my godfather there were many of my father's friends who were
kindly disposed towards me. Malibran is one of those I associate with my
earliest days. Perhaps I remember her, perhaps I but fancy I do, for I
was only three or four years old when she died. But I have impressions
of her sitting on the floor and painting pretty pictures for us
children; a certain black silk bag, from the depths of which she
produced paint-box, brushes, and other beautiful and mysterious things,
had an irresistible charm for us, as had also her big dark eyes, and
that wonderful mouth of hers, which she showed us could easily hold an
orange. And then she would sing to us Spanish songs by her father,
Manuel Garcia, and other celebrities. In my album she wrote, "Nei giorni
tuoi felici ricordati di Marie de Beriot," and the flourish appended to
the signature takes the shape of an apocryphal bird. For my father's
album, one of the completest of its kind, she composed an Allegretto, a
song which I believe has never been published.

The words, probably by herself, run thus:--

    "Il est parti sans voir sa fiancée
    Lorsque le bal était prêt à s'ouvrir;
    Si pour une autre il m'avait délaissée,
    Malheur à moi, je n'ai plus qu'à mourir."

It is dated July 16, 1836: she died on the 23rd of September following.

Thalberg was also a children's man. He was not much of a romp, but
always full of jokes, musical and otherwise. Interested as I was in the
outward appearance of my home pianists, I was duly impressed by
Thalberg's rigid appearance at the piano, contrasting as it did with the
lively ways of Liszt and others. He had trained himself to this truly
military bearing by practising his most difficult passages whilst he
smoked a long Turkish chibouk, the cup of which rested on the ground.

Another source of wonder, not unmixed with awe, was the bulky frame of
Lablache, the great singer. It was indeed a basso profondo which emerged
from the depths of his ponderous figure. The beauty of his voice, the
perfection of his style, and his unconventional deportment on the stage,
I learnt to appreciate in later years. I particularly recollect him as
Bartolo in Rossini's "Barbiere," on an occasion when Sontag and Mario
took the other leading parts. As a small boy I just liked to walk round
him, and thought the hackney-coach driver, as they called the cabby
then, was not far wrong when he inquired whether his fare expected to be
conveyed in one lot.

One of the friends of those early days was Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His
father was giving my elder sisters Italian lessons, and that led to most
friendly intercourse with him and his two sons. I mention Gabriel's name
with a twinge of regret, for the chief records of that intercourse, a
number of drawings by his hand, are irretrievably lost. There were--I
see them still--knights in armour, fair ladies, and graceful pages, bold
pen-and-ink drawings, illustrating a story that ran through several
numbers of our own special paper the "Weekly Critic." What, or by whom
the story was, I do not recollect, probably by Chorley, who was a
frequent contributor to that weekly publication of ours. The drawings in
no way foreshadowed Gabriel's later manner; they were just what an
imaginative young fellow of seventeen or eighteen would draw, but I feel
sure there were no beautiful peculiarities or other poetical deviations
from the natural in this his early work. I often wonder where the
"Weekly Critic" is in hiding. If this should meet the eye of anybody who
knows, I trust he will come forward and receive my blessing in exchange
for the drawings which we will give to an expectant world.

When I was about twelve I made my first appearance on the stage under
peculiar circumstances. My father had announced a concert in Baden,
where we were spending the summer, he the centre of a musical circle, I
a schoolboy enjoying my holidays, and specially devoted to the climbing
of trees and the picking of blackberries. The impresario of the Court
Theatre in Carlsruhe (he seemed to me a sort of Grand Mogul) had
graciously permitted the stars of his Opera to sing at that concert of
my father's. At the eleventh hour, however, there was a hitch, and the
stars were needed to shine on their own Grand-Ducal boards. In the hope
that matters might yet be settled in his favour, my father sent me to
him with urgent messages. On my arrival I made straight for the theatre,
and entering by an unguarded back door, I soon found myself in a maze of
dark passages. The sounds of music guided me to the stage, where a
rehearsal of the "Vier Haymons-Kinder" was going on, and from the wings
I found my way into a rustic arbour destined for the trysting-place of
the lovers in the particular scene which was being rehearsed; there I
was biding my time when I was discovered by the lady who had come to
meet the tenor. The performance was abruptly stopped; the lady was no
other than the great prima donna and our old friend Madame Haizinger.
Rushing at me with a cry of dramatic exultation, she seized me and
carried me triumphantly on to the middle of the stage. "Here," she
cried, holding me up to the assembled company, my arms and legs
dangling in mid-air--"here, ladies and gentlemen, you see Felix, the son
of my old friend Moscheles." The Grand Mogul sat at a table covered with
papers to my left, and happily looked upon the interruption and the
rapturous outburst as nothing uncommon. As soon as I was replaced on my
feet, I delivered my messages, but my influence as a diplomatic agent
was not proof against untoward circumstances, and I failed in my
mission.

That same Court Theatre was destined soon to become the prey of flames;
it was the scene of a terrible catastrophe when many lives were lost.

I was soon to see more of Carlsruhe. Chiefly with a view to improving my
German, I was put to school there. Now Carlsruhe was in those days one
of the dullest places rational man ever condescended to inhabit. I think
it was Heine who said that the dogs came up to you in the street and
begged as a favour that you would tread on their toes, just to relieve
them of the intolerable monotony of their lives. How it is to-day I
don't know; probably they now have music-halls and motor cars, jingoes
and pickpockets, but in my time all was slow, sure, and safe. The
Grand-Duke sat in his palace like a royal spider in his web; all the
streets radiated fan-like from the centre he occupied. In the forest, at
the back of the palace, the avenues were cut out so as to form a
counterpart to the city, one and all converging towards the abode of the
Ruler. A fine spacious market-place there was, however, with a town-hall
and a church and a monument to a departed Markgraf, round which
clustered on certain days quaint old apple-women whom we school-boys
patronised to the fullest extent of our limited means. We were close at
hand, for the "Gymnasium" was happily situated in this most attractive
part of the town. For all that, it took me some time before I could get
accustomed to my new home.

Professor Schummelig, to whose care I was entrusted, was good in his
way; I give him a fictitious name, as I have to record that he could
also be bad in his way. I don't think he made my lessons more tedious or
my tasks more irksome than any other ordinary German professor would
have done; but he was pedantic and I was imaginative, so we did not
always give one another satisfaction. We had one or two grand rows, in
which the wrongs cannot have been all on my side, for, as soon as
convenient, he granted me a free pardon, in consideration of which I was
required not to mention the unpleasant incident in my letters to my
parents (my father paid a hundred florins per quarter). I acquiesced,
and so we were soon on good terms again.

But I always felt he was an egoist. He would carve the daily little
piece of boiled beef just so as to give himself the particular portion
which I coveted. The bread, too, was under his control: he would never
take much of it at a time, but he would just cut himself little titbits,
crisp corners, and knotty excrescences, until the loaf took the
appearance of a dismantled wreck. He also squinted, not with that broad
outside squint, ever ready to see both sides, to embrace all things,
but with a narrow selfish inside squint which slid down his nose, and
from there watched the focussing and absorption of the titbits with keen
interest and an irritating show of gratified tastes.

And not only was the professor's field of vision thus distressingly
limited, but there was also some moral obliquity in his composition. He
mistook certain piles of fire-logs, which had been stocked for the use
of the public school, for his own private property. When this was
discovered, the authorities, happily for the professor, winked at his
delinquencies with an eye to avoiding a scandal--a course they might be
well justified in taking, as Justice herself is admitted to be blind.

There were two female servants to minister to our wants--two female
drudges, I should say. In lieu of their real names they had been dubbed
"Die grosse Biene" and "Die kleine Biene"--the great bee and the little
bee--with a view, I suppose, to encouraging them in the delusion that
they were not born white slaves, one large and the other small, but busy
bees whose nature it was to improve the shining hour, whether it shone
by the light of the day or the oil of the night.

The German language, as spoken in the Fatherland, its irregularities,
vagaries, and varieties, gave me much trouble. In Hamburg I had learnt
to pronounce the words "stehen" and "stossen" with a sharp and incisive
_st_; in the south, all the stiffness and stubbornness was taken out of
it, and I had to say "schtehe" and "schtosse." Then the words
themselves changed, and "laufen" stood for "gehen," "springen" for
"laufen." This surprised me, as I did not know then that the Southerner
generally calls running what the Northerner calls walking.

Titles, too, puzzled me, especially when applied to ladies. The first
time I heard the "Frau Professorin" mentioned, I looked so blank, not to
say shocked, that I evoked general mirth. (It is surprising how well one
remembers the occasions when one was laughed at.) But the "Frau
Professorin" seemed a strange creature to me in those days, and I little
thought that for many a year I was to hear my own mother called by that
title.

I had my first skirmishes with the French language too, and I certainly
thought I was being made a fool of when I was told there was no word in
French for our verb, "to stand." I had learnt the German "stehen" and
the ditto "schtehe," and I had conjugated every tense of the Latin
"stare," and now I refused to believe that the French language could
have a _locus standi_ amongst civilised nations without an equivalent
for those words. I did not know then how much civilisation can put up
with, and it took me a long while to overcome my mistrust of a language
so evidently unsound at its base.

We all know to what wearisome length an average schoolmaster can draw
out a single hour, and my teachers were no exception to the rule. Time
went slowly, as did all things fifty years ago in Carlsruhe.

What a blessed relief it was then when a holiday came round! Perhaps it
was when we were liberated in honour of our glorious Grand-Duke's
birthday, perhaps when we were to join in the commemoration of some
great deed or greater misdeed of one of his ancestors, or perhaps--best
of all--when once or twice Mother Earth was clad in so much loveliness,
that it was just impossible to keep masters and boys indoors, dissecting
dead languages and putting historical bones together. Nature herself
seemed to proclaim a free pardon for us prisoners and for our warders:
off we went all together to the woods.

How we ran and shouted when we got into those avenues of trees behind
the Grand-Ducal Palace, how madly we raced, how heroically we fought the
boys we hated, and how solemnly we swore eternal friendship with the
ones we loved! We climbed trees, cut sticks, and did what little harm we
could to exuberant prolific Nature; we chased butterflies and deprived
spiders of their legitimate prey, and then--selfish little lords of
creation that we were--we settled down where the grass grew thickest, to
discuss large haunches of bread and red-cheeked apples, and to crack
nuts and jokes in true schoolboy fashion.

The masters forgot for the while that they were German professors, with
spectacles on their noses and Latin quotations on their lips. They were
just human, and felt themselves as much at home in the woods as we did,
gratefully inhaling the same balmy air, and greedily swallowing the same
glittering dust. They knew something, too, to tell us about God's
creation, and in those blessed hours taught us wonderful and beautiful
things that stirred our little souls, and made us glad to live and
wonder and worship.

Oscar--I have forgotten his surname--was not a professor, and did not
even wear spectacles, but he was a sort of monitor, had long silky
eyelashes, and he certainly was in love. He never told me so, but I am
sure he was, and remembering him and his eyelashes as I do, I can easily
reconstruct the simple story of his love. She was a Gretchen, a sweet
German maiden, blue-eyed and golden-haired. They first met at a
Kränzchen where their feet waltzed to the same step and their hearts
beat to the same tune. Then on two ever-to-be-remembered Sunday
afternoons they took coffee together in the "Restauration zum blauen
Stern," and on the second occasion, as they were going home through the
pine-woods, he said something to her she had never heard before; her
answer was inaudible, but I know she left her hand where he wanted it to
remain, and the good old moon did the rest. They soon received the
paternal and maternal blessings, and now they were happy in the
knowledge that in six or eight years nothing would stand between them
and their fondest hopes, when he probably would have passed his
examinations and have secured his first appointment.

I must have caught the loving mood from Oscar, or else some wood-nymphs
or sprites must have been trying their hands on me, or perhaps I was
only tired and lagged behind. Certain it is that a new sort of feeling
came over me, a semi-conscious yearning for an unknown quantity that was
waiting for me somewhere; and as I lay on my back under the trees, my
imagination shot upwards, starting from the gnarled roots by my side,
along the mast-like perpendiculars the pines, past jolly little
squirrels, patches of moss and garlands of creepers, right to the top
where the sky's blue eyes were winking at me. Nature was whispering some
secret and I was dreaming my first Midsummer-Day's Dream.

All around there was humming and buzzing, piping and singing; mysterious
sounds, joyous notes, and pensive ditties. Some bird with a flute-like
voice sang a pretty little musical phrase, just a bar of five or six
notes, and kept on repeating it at intervals. Another little bird, deep
down in the forest, answered it--birds of a feather flirt together--only
there were so many chirping chatterboxes about, enjoying themselves in
their way, that the warbling flirtation was carried on under
difficulties. For all that, the flute-like voice never tired of saying
its say, and putting its question, pleased as it evidently was with its
mate's reply. I dare say it knew a good deal better than I did at the
time what it was all about, and what was the grand and glorious answer
inexhaustible Nature held in store for it.

For my part, I gazed upward at the patches of ultramarine, and longed
for them, but it was not till years afterwards that they vouchsafed to
come down. Then, when they took the shape of a pair of real blue eyes,
it all dawned upon me, and I knew what Nature had been whispering, and
understood that stately pine-forests, jolly little squirrels, and
loving little birds, were only created to guide and direct good little
boys to realms of joy and happiness.

       *       *       *       *       *

Whilst I was sitting on school-forms puzzling over nouns and verbs, or
lying on the grass communing with the birds, things were happening in my
London home that were once more to lead to a change in my surroundings.

Another pleasant day-dream, one that my father and his friend
Mendelssohn had for some time past been indulging in, was about to be
realised. The frequent correspondence between them, delightful as it
was, the exchange of views, musical and personal, and the occasional
meetings in England or Germany, had only more saliently brought out the
points in favour of a long-cherished scheme which should enable them to
live and work together in the same town.

Mendelssohn had for some time been planning the formation of a School of
Music in Leipsic, and his letters of this period are full of the warmest
and most eloquent appeals to my father to give up his position in
England, and to take up his residence in Leipsic. The outcome of it was,
that the Conservatorio in that city was founded, and that my father was
offered a professorship. In answer to his assumption that Mendelssohn
would act as director, the latter answers: "I am not, and never shall be
the director of the school. I stand in precisely the same kind of
position that it is hoped you may occupy. The duties of my department
are the reading of compositions, &c., and as I was one of the founders
of the school, and am acquainted with its weak points, I lend a hand
here and there until we are more firmly established."

In the summer of 1846 my father migrated to Leipsic. He gave up his
brilliant position in London, and, actuated by the love of his art and
his desire to be in daily touch with Mendelssohn, he had no hesitation
in accepting a salary of 800 thalers (£120) per annum. In a letter to a
relative he speaks of the dear and kind friends he leaves behind.
"Parting from them individually," he says, "and indeed from the English
nation generally, will cost us a bitter pang, for twenty-four years of
unswerving kindness have laid upon us obligations which we can only pay
with life-long gratitude."

And Mendelssohn wrote: "How could I tell you what it is to me, when I
think you are really coming, that you are going to live here for good,
you and yours, and that what seemed a castle in the air is about to
become a tangible reality; that we shall be together, not merely to run
through the dissipations of a season, but to enjoy an intimate and
uninterrupted intercourse! I shall have a few houses painted rose-colour
as soon as you really are within our walls. But it needs not that; your
arrival alone will give the whole place a new complexion."

Not by such words only, but most practically did Mendelssohn show his
friendship. With the precision of a courier and the foresight of a
brother, he goes into the minutest details of the cost of living in the
German city: "A flat, consisting of seven or eight rooms, with kitchen
and appurtenances, varies from 300 to 350 thalers (£45 to £50). For that
sum it should be cheerful; and, as regards the situation, should leave
nothing to be desired. Servants would cost 100 to 110 thalers per annum
(£15 to £16, 10s.), all depending, to be sure, on what you would
require. Male servants are not much in demand here, their wages varying
from 3 to 12 thalers per month (9s. to £1, 16s.). A good cook gets 40
thalers a year (£6), a housemaid 32 (£5). If you add to these a
lady's-maid who could sew and make dresses, you would reach about the
above-mentioned figure. Wood--that is fuel for kitchen, stoves, &c.--is
dear, and may amount to 150 or 200 thalers (£22, 10s. to £18) for a
family of five with servants. Rates and taxes are next to nothing; eight
or ten thalers a year would cover all."

Those were indeed the good old times, when the Fatherland was not yet
weighed down by blood-and-iron taxes. The most gifted member of the
International Arbitration and Peace Association could not speak more
eloquently than do those figures. A family of five with servants; 24s.
to 30s. a year would cover all rates and taxes!

Soon, then, the suitable flat was found and my father migrated to
Leipsic, entered on his new duties at the Conservatorio, and became a
good citizen and ratepayer. The "intimate and uninterrupted intercourse"
became a reality, and there was scarcely a day when the Mendelssohns and
Moscheles did not meet. They could not do without me, however (remember
I was an only son, and a well-beloved godson), so I was recalled and
soon left Carlsruhe, I am afraid, with a wicked sense of ingratitude for
all the care bestowed on me by Professor Schummelig and my other
teachers.

It was terribly cold that winter, and travelling was fraught with
difficulties, if not with dangers. Our diligence was a heavy one, and
when it got stuck fast in the drifting snow, as it did more than once,
the passengers had to get out, whether it was by day or by night, and
literally put their shoulders to the wheel. It was only thanks to a very
kind and provident "conducteur," that my much-tried little spark of
vitality was preserved. He kept a never-to-be-forgotten straw-plaited
brandy flask suspended from his neck by a green cord, and when my
spirits flagged, his did good office.

It was midnight a day or two before Christmas when we arrived at the
"Post" in Leipsic. My luggage was put on a diminutive sledge and dragged
along the snow-bound street, I running by its side to keep body and soul
together. Nobody knows till he has tried it how hot a run in the bitter
cold can make one, particularly when one's heart beats at the thought of
a welcome, and one's mind is all ablaze with the brilliant images of
those one loves. There I was at last in the new home and folded in the
old embrace.

Once settled, the question soon arose what was to be done with me next,
and a decision was come to, to send me for a short time to the Bau
Schule (School of Architecture). Those wooden bricks of my early
boyhood, and the table with the many compartments, had gone the way of
all good bricks and tables, but my love for architecture remained, and I
now sometimes regret that I was not to continue my studies in that
direction till I had had the regular classical education; but so it was.
By the time I had learnt how to stretch a sheet of paper on a
drawing-board, and how to handle the compasses and T-square, and just
when I was getting to know something about the price of tiles and the
mixing of mortar, I left the Bau Schule, and was entered at the Thomas
Schule. That was a famous old institution. The whole upper storey of the
school was occupied by a number of free pupils, the "Thomaner"
choir-boys. They were celebrated throughout Germany as the best singers
of sacred music, trained as they had originally been by no less a master
than Johann Sebastian Bach, the famous "Cantor." His rooms in that
building were now occupied by his successor, Hauptmann, who knew how to
maintain the highest standard of excellence in his pupils. He was a man
of learning and an erudite musician, and as such, one of the pillars of
strength on which rested Leipsic's reputation, that city standing quite
unrivalled as the centre towards which all musical aspirants gravitated.

He spoke little; but when he did, it was to say much. His criticisms
could be severe, as when a new orchestral piece was being rehearsed, he
said, "That sounds quite Mendelssohnian, it must be by Sterndale
Bennett."

His boys sang on many occasions--at church, at weddings, funerals, or
birthdays. I made great friends with some of them, and formed a regular
class to teach them English; but although they were very willing pupils,
I did not obtain as brilliant results in my line, as my predecessor,
Johann Sebastian Bach, had achieved in his.

Herr Magister Hohlfeld, the Professor of Mathematics, was a wonderful
old man--how old no one knew. He was a figure that belonged to the
middle of the last century. Clad in a long grey cloth coat, which
reached to his feet, he looked a curious relic of bygone times; cares
and calculations, worldly and scientific, had worked deep furrows all
over his lofty forehead, and had left their impress on every feature. A
rich crop of white hair fell over his shoulders; his hands on his back,
and his head slightly bent down, he would solemnly address the boards he
was treading, as he paced up and down between the two lines of
school-benches; it was given to few of us to catch the words of
mathematical wisdom that fell from his lips.

"The Frenchman" was another figure I look back to with interest. Not
that there was anything remarkable in his appearance, but that, when
judiciously roused to anger, he would never fail to make a fool of
himself. He was not a Frenchman, but a German born and bred, who taught
French, and happily for us he was so constituted, that it was a real
pleasure, unchecked by any fear of possible consequences, to take
advantage of his weaknesses. We did so, exercising our indiscretion
whenever we had a chance. A good opportunity presented itself during the
cherry season. We paved the particular part of the class-room he was in
the habit of promenading, with bad intentions in the shape of
cherry-stones. After the first few steps he had taken, he stopped short,
indignantly apostrophising us. "I tell you, boys, it's just a piece of
impudence when the master treads on cherry-stones." We thought so, too,
and howled with delight. At that time I had a beautiful big dog named
Hector, and one afternoon I thought it might prove effective if I
entered the class-room with him when the French lesson had begun. I did
so, to the terror of "the Frenchman," on whom Hector had at once made a
friendly rush. The dog was expelled, and then I was severely taken to
task. "Ah," said the Professor, "you think you can take liberties with
me, but I tell you, sir, you can't take liberties with such a big dog."

But it must not be thought that I was always worrying poor innocent
Magisters, and rejoicing in their discomfiture; some of my teachers I
think of with gratitude. There was Stallbaum, the rector himself a great
man of learning: he took great pains to cram us with our full share of
Latin and Greek, and to make us periodically contribute to the wealth of
the classical literature handed down to us, by writing essays and
composing verses in the dead languages.

The love of fighting was early instilled into us by the works of Homer,
Herodotus, Julius Cæsar, and other historians; and if, as some think, my
pugnacious instincts have not been satisfactorily developed, it was not
the fault of the Rector. But he taught me to revere that grandest and
most powerful of tragedians, Sophocles.

Nor must I forget to mention the lasting impression that Ovid's
"Metamorphoses" made on me. The gods of mythology have ever remained
dear to me; they are so accessible, so free and easy as they come down
from Olympus quite unceremoniously, to roam about and make love; you
meet them in the woods and on the waters, above ground and below ground,
sometimes enjoying themselves at your expense, but mostly showing you,
by their example, how you should enjoy life. To be sure the methods of a
Jupiter or a Venus are quite inapplicable to the social restrictions,
and generally to the changed conditions of the present day, but they
were dear old gods and goddesses all the same, who condescended to be
human, and sanctified our frailties. I, for one, am grateful to them,
for they taught me the love of poetry and the poetry of love.

My first drawing-master, Herr Brauer, was a good old soul too: I owe him
one of the foremost pleasures of my life, the exercise of my profession
as a painter. His own work, although very clever in its way, was
niggling and minute, but his ideas and teachings were broad, and whilst
encouraging a taste for form which had made the study of architecture so
attractive to me, he knew how to awaken a love of colour, that was
eventually to lead me to the sister art.

The old masters, too, had their full share in making me long to paint.
There was a certain picture by Murillo, a Madonna and Child, in the
Schletter Collection which afterwards formed the nucleus of the Leipsic
Picture Gallery; that picture so filled my imagination that I was fired
by the desire to go forth and do likewise.

I have since frequently found that that kind of _auch'io_ feeling is by
no means confined to those in whom it would be justifiable. In a
masterpiece the artist betrays no effort; all looks so easy that one
fancies it _is_ easy. The lines of the composition flow so naturally,
the colours strike so complete a chord, that one is deluded into the
belief that it could not be otherwise, and that it is just what one
would have done oneself had one been in the painter's place. So I was
gradually settling in my mind that, as soon as I had passed my
Abiturienten Examen (equivalent to our matriculation), I would, without
much delay, begin to paint like the old masters.

Of Mendelssohn and the many friends, musical and otherwise, who made my
stay, and later on my visits to Leipsic, interesting, I must speak
afterwards. But an incident which has left a lasting impression on my
mind, finds its place here, as being connected partly with my
school-days and partly with my art studies.




CHAPTER II

WILL YOU SIT FOR ME, FRIDA?


I well remember, and I shall ever remember with gratitude, the man who
in my German school-days helped me along the thorny paths of the Latin
and Greek grammar, Herr Magister Dr. Traumann. I suppose I got into
trouble, as much as any boy of sixteen, with the so-called regular, and
those disgracefully irregular, verbs the old Greeks tolerated. But Dr.
Traumann was always kind and helpful; in fact, he was not only a
first-rate teacher but a lovable man. I had, soon after my arrival in
Leipsic, been put under his care, and thanks to his coaching, I got so
well ahead of myself, that although my scholastic antecedents would
really have fitted me more for the "Tertia" class, I could be
pitchforked into "Secunda."

During a temporary absence of my parents from Leipsic I was for some
months staying in the Magister's house; three flights of stairs brought
one to his door. I usually bounded up those stairs with the elastic step
that leads to a happy home, but to-day--a certain to-day that seems but
yesterday--my tread was slow and diffident. How could I face the
Magister, the man above all others whom I had treated with
disrespect--I had libelled! What reception awaited me? Whether I took
two steps at a time or one at half-time, the result was much the same; I
got upstairs, rang the bell, and went in.

This is what had happened during the morning's lesson at the
Thomas-Schule. The learned doctor was expounding the subtle meaning of
some lines in Virgil's "Æneid." I found that the top layer of the poet's
meaning would do for me, but, as is the way with the erudite, Dr.
Traumann went down very deep, backed by an army of commentators; in fact
so deep that I did not care to follow. So I took to a more congenial
occupation, and, under the cover of a friendly desk, I began to compose
what seemed to me an interesting subject. How long I was about it, I do
not know. The Doctor had walked up and down dozens of times between the
forms, when suddenly a hand reached behind the desk and quietly annexed
and pocketed the composition. The hand was the Doctor's. He walked on
quite unconcernedly, prodding and probing old Virgil's defunct thoughts
as before. And all the while he had that wicked caricature of himself in
his breast-pocket, and presently he would see it and read the legend
that relegated him and the commentators to the Dantesque depths of their
own seeking.

I was eating a green apple, to give myself courage, when the Magister
came in. What would he say? How would he take it? Well--he took it just
as if nothing had happened, and smiling pleasantly, he said, "Look
here, Felix, I have got a splendid specimen to show you," and with that,
he fumbled in his pocket and produced a small piece of quartz. "I have
got another piece, so you can have this for your collection."

"Oh, thank you, Herr Magister," I said; "I am sure you are too kind.
I--I don't deserve it."

He cut me short with: "Not at all, my boy; we are just on a footing of
exchange. 'Eine Hand wäscht die andere,' as the proverb says."

What has become of my minerals I don't know, but to this day I often
think, soap in hand, of the proverb that says, "One hand washes the
other." As for the caricature, he never said anything about it, but I
know now he treasured it and loved me all the more for being a bad one.

If he was kind, she was still kinder; she, the Frau Magisterin. I had by
this time got initiated into the mysteries of German usage as regards
the participation of the wife in her husband's titular advantages.
Without an effort I could address Frau Schmidt as Mrs. Lettercarrieress,
or Frau Müller as Madame Chimneysweeperess. So the "Frau Magisterin"
came quite naturally to me. She called me "Mein Lixchen," a tender
variation on my name. In fact, tenderness prevailed between her and me
from first to last, maternal on her side, filial on mine. She was under
middle size and of slight build; her bright little eyes, beaming with
benevolence, attracted you so much that you saw but little else in her
face. Everything was small about her. A tight-fitting cap hid the best
part of her hair, and the plain dress without puffs or ruffles, or any
of the other digressions dictated by the fashions of the day, seemed to
make everything else subordinate to the love-beaming eyes. She was then
in the prime of life. When I last saw her she was an old lady of
fourscore years, and her dear little face had become so very small,
that, although I am sure I did not mean to be irreverent in my thoughts,
I could not help being reminded of the immortal Cheshire cat, that
vanished leaving naught behind but a smile. Time, I felt, might deal
with her as is its wont, contract here and pinch there, lay out in folds
and wrinkles what were round and smooth surfaces; but that particular
twinkle that goes straight to the heart, the smile of the eye, would
ever remain intact.

The Magister and his wife were a truly happy and devoted couple, and
closely wound around their hearts were Bella and Frida, their two
daughters; one was about sixteen, the other fourteen, at the time I was
staying with them, good girls and pretty, with brown hair inclined to
curl on Bella's head, very smooth and Priscilla-like on Frida's. With a
view to securing for them the best possible education under the maternal
eye, classes had been formed at their home, and consequently a bevy of
young girls came up and went down those three flights of stairs on
certain days and at given hours. I was always interested in curious
coincidences, and so, to bring them about, I frequently found myself in
the way at the given hours. On such occasions I tried to look
unconcerned, or surprised at the meeting, but unfortunately I was yet
too honest and truthful, so I signally failed and blushed like a girl.
Not like those girls though; they didn't seem to blush, the little
fiends. With the exception of just one, they tittered right over the
banisters, whispered, and shook locks and dangled satchels until I was
quite discomfited. I suppose they thought it rich fun, for they knew,
long before I was aware of it myself, that I was desperately in love
with Helene. It was the tittering, I am sure, that finally put me on the
track, and the whispering that opened my eyes to the blindness I was
stricken with. That was one day when those rosy, mischievous, young
amorettes must have said something particularly unkind to their sister,
for she bounded past me and her tormentors, like a deer, to get rid of
the lot of us. After this I felt an ever-growing desire to see Helene,
but took a dislike to the staircase as a meeting-place.

About this time, as luck would have it, I came across her two brothers,
fair chubby boys about my age. We struck up a sort of friendship, and I
took care the sort should be improved upon, interested as I was in
securing their good-will. It was, above all, important to get reliable
information as to where and when _she_ could be met out skating, and my
new friends, I found, were particularly sympathetic and communicative
when under the influence of a certain kind of "apfelkuchen," an open
apple tart, dispensed on most advantageous terms in the Barfussgässchen.
There the Frau Bakermistress often had to open for me a little shutter
in a shutter and hand out, on a piece of newspaper, large segments of
the Kuchen, bidding it God-speed with a parting jerk of the perforated
tin sugar-box. Perhaps to show that there was no bribery or corruption
in my standing treat, and, perhaps too, as one's appetite at the age of
sixteen is rather stimulated than blunted by love, I took my fair share
of the segments. These symposia led, in the most natural of ways, to our
making appointments to meet on this or that frozen pond or river, and I
was sure to be punctual, knowing as I did, from information received,
that Helene would be there. More than once I skated along that narrow
river, the Pleisse, for miles, pushing before me the "Stuhlschlitten,"
with its precious many-locked burden. Helene was comfortably ensconced
in that elementary specimen of a sledge, a sort of easy-chair on skates,
and was wrapped up in furs and covers, every inch of her carefully
protected, excepting her little nose and lips, which would get linked to
her veil by cobweb threads of ice, as King Frost welcomed her cherished
breath. And didn't his Majesty just rule supreme that year!

I may have been a fair example of a boy lover, but I fear a diary which
I kept and have preserved goes far to prove that I was a most
precocious--you might call it priggish--young meteorologist, making his
observations with pedantic regularity, morn, noon, and night, on
thermometer and ombrometer, and publishing the results in his own name
with the proud prefix of "Herr Gymnasiast." We often hear of exceptional
winters, but the one I speak of beats the record. Siberian cold visited
us all through January; on the 21st of that month I find noted:

            8 A. M.    12.M.            10.P. M.
           -19.7       -14.2           -21.4 Réaumur;
    equal to 35,        26,    and      39 degrees Fahrenheit below
                                           freezing-point.

A bitter cruel time to many;--a very Godsend to hardy skaters. I was of
the latter. Off with overcoat and on we went--left, right--left,
right--in long curved lines, the sledge flying ahead on the frozen
waters of that puny river that had swallowed up thousands of Napoleon's
followers on their retreat after the lost battle of Leipsic. On we went
till we landed on the very spot where one of the last decisive
encounters took place, and there we, some dozens of us, fought bravely
for an adequate supply of coffee and Kaffeekuchen (you know by this time
that "Kuchen" means cake, and that it meant a good deal to us in those
days). In the meanwhile the girls of our fancies had time to thaw, and
usually came in a melting mood to the little tables at which they would
graciously accept the chivalrous attentions dear to the bread-and-butter
Miss.

As for Helene, to be sure she was of the ripe age of seventeen, and I
had a sort of feeling that she would expect me to speak to her parents
if I had anything definite to say. Till then the indefinite would do,
and she made it quite easy to me to say all I wanted in that deliciously
tentative way that marks our first attempts at disguising our feelings,
whilst we are burning to proclaim them. It was all smooth sailing as
long as I only had to minister to her creature wants, and I got as far
as--

"O Fräulein, you must come out every Sunday; I do hope you will."

But when I wanted to explain that this my wish was mainly owing to the
fact that her hair started in most fascinating wavelets from her
temples, there was a kind of barrier that arose to stop me, a halo that
came in the way to form a magic circle into which I could not penetrate.
I wanted to say something about Helen of Troy, but I did not know what
conclusion to draw from her history, and besides it would sound so
foolish and priggish. So I said nothing about her, and by the time we
got up to return home, I had not done much to improve the opportunity.

Our skates were once more firmly secured to our feet, and our young
ladies comfortably settled in their Stuhlschlitten. We all started
together, but soon we broke the ranks, each one taking his own time. I
was in a mood to go ahead and struck out at full speed. In fact it was
not long before I was dashing past another sledge at such a
close-shaving pace that Helene gave a start and a little cry of "Ach,
don't, Herr Felix, please don't." But I was reckless and only went at a
madder pace. She was in my grip; I had her to myself right away from the
other boys. How I triumphed over them all! What did they know about
love? With them it was all giggling and window parade, and meeting on
the Promenade, and doffing caps, and then taking a short cut, to meet
again and have another chance of capdoffing. To be sure I had done all
that kind of thing myself, but I was much too full of the present to
think of the past.

She was mine; I held her in my--or at least my sledge held her in
its--arms; it was the most glorious consummation of my wishes. I had
carried her off into some new atmosphere, that did all the propelling
automatically, some new element where weight counted for nothing. So on
I went. Danger! Nonsense, there was none. I had got my treasure well in
hand. Never mind if she fancied there was danger and was nervous; all
the better if she was right. Was not I there to save and to protect her?

Such a swing round to get out of the way of that lumbering skater,
hanging on to a sledge with a woman and two children. No, I certainly
wouldn't dig my heel into the ice and pull up.

"Ach, don't, please don't, Herr Felix," she cried; "I'm sure there'll be
an accident."

"Don't be afraid, please don't, Fräulein Helene," I rejoined; "can't you
trust yourself to me?"

"Oh yes, yes, but really, please, do stop, _dear_ Herr Felix."

I slackened a little as I said, "Why _do_ you always call me Herr? It
does sound so formal."

"Well, isn't that the right thing?" she answered. "You only call
children by their Christian names. Don't grown-up people always call one
another Herr, or Frau, or Fräulein?"

"Not always; you don't call Julius, Herr Julius."

"To be sure not, you silly; who is Julius? He is only my cousin."

"That's just so unfair. He's a benighted ass, who, I'll be bound,
doesn't know the colour of your eyes, or which side the dimple is, and
you treat him better than those who do--(a pause)--yes, who do--who do
quite well."

"Oh, I hate my dimple; my brothers are always worrying me about it."

"I'll stop that, but you must drop the Herr."

"No, I certainly _won't_. Do you want to be a child?"

"No, Helene, you are the child and I am the man; that I will show
you"----

And with that I started off again viciously.

"Ach, Herr Felix--no, I mean Felix, I didn't say I wouldn't."

Another diabolic spurt that made the sledge twist and quiver. She
clutched its wooden sides for safety, and cried out to the young fiend
behind:

"I never said I wouldn't, Felix; do please stop--Felix--dear Felix."

This time my heel went deep into the ice, grinding out its order to pull
up. In a moment I was round to the front, on my knees to pick up one of
the rugs that had got loose and was dragging. The footstool was half
off, and poor Helene's little feet were exposed to the biting frost.
They were just lumps of ice, and I felt very guilty, for it was all my
zig-zagging and swinging about that had done it. "Wait a minute, I know
what will warm them in no time. My fur gloves are the very thing."

And with that I popped one foot into each glove, and gave her the cord
to hold that connected both, and that was usually slung round my neck.

"Oh, that is glorious!" she said, as the heat from _my_ gloves, my heat,
passed into her veins. "You are too kind, dear Mr.... I mean, my dear
Felix. But you will want them yourself. You must take them back."

"Nonsense," I answered, as I tightened the gloves round her feet and
tucked her up with the rug that had kindly played truant.

"But I am sure you will get your fingers frost-bitten."

"Not likely; you just look out they don't set the back of your sledge on
fire."

And with that we started at a moderate pace. I was in no hurry to get
home, and in fact we had to give the rest of the party time to come up
with us.

Fancy having to sit down and prepare for to-morrow's mathematics and
Virgil after that! This time I was one of the commentators, and marginal
notes in the shape of initials and scribbled profiles got in where they
shouldn't.

But on the whole I did not find that the new development interfered with
my studies. It was rather the other way, for I felt it would be
positively ignominious to be snubbed by a professor, a schoolmaster. I
was filled with overweening self-confidence, and fired with ambition.
The things I thought and planned! Just the things you would laugh at now
that you know so much about love and love-making. You shouldn't laugh!
Is not the boy's first budding love the very best bit of the Creator's
work, the tenderest shoot He grafts on the old tree of life? Nature
likes to hear her own voice as it comes truly and purely from the boy's
lips, tired as she is of man's false vows. The boy's heart holds the
divine spark of love, the same that will light the flame of his later
days, only it is minus the bacilli that threaten to creep in, sooner or
later, and crowd it with doubt and disappointment, or poison it with
selfishness and passion. Nature, consistent as she is, repeats her
processes wherever she is at work. For a while the rosebud remains
closed, and is safe; then it opens its unsuspecting leaves, and in walks
a wary worm and says, "This is just the place for me." The snow falls
white, even in grimy cities--how soon to mingle with soot and dirt! The
world changes, but the fountain source of all things remains pure; we
can return to it, recuperate and restore ourselves in its waters; there
alone we may find the mythical baths that, in olden days, promised
health and youth. Harking back, we shall hear voices that once touched
us, and may yet guide us.

But whilst my aspirations were soaring higher and higher, the fates were
taking me and my lady-love into their old meddlesome hands, and just
shaping our course at the dictates of their irresponsible caprice.

A grand sledge-party had been organised for the following Sunday,--a big
affair, with a band to start us and torches to light us home. It was a
glorious prospect, and I for one was duly excited. On Friday, at 10 P.
M., I went as usual to take the reading of my thermometer. The mercury
had risen by six degrees. I went out into the garden, consulted the wind
and sniffed the air, and my meteorological soul was filled with the
greatest misgivings. I felt it, I knew it; nothing could save us. The
thaw had set in; there would be no band, no torches, no Helene!

Such an opportunity I was never to have again. The river that had
befriended me had lost its strength, and was no more to carry her or me;
soon it would flow its natural course. Thoughts alone and words remained
icebound, and my hopes sank below zero. Henceforth I should meet her
only on _terra firma_, and--alas!--_terra firma_ was not as friendly an
element as _aqua firma_ had been.

The first time I saw her was about three weeks after the "My dear Felix"
day. She was walking with her mother along that beautiful promenade that
encircles the old city of Leipsic. On her other side was a middle-aged
man--he must have been at least twenty-five--and he--oh! I could see it
at a glance--was all smiles, doing the amiable. _He_ was not like
Julius; _he_ knew which was the dimple side and had taken it.

To be sure I had to pull off my cap and salute, what they call bow and
grin; but I felt like a bird with clipped wings, a string tied to its
leg and fastened to a bar of its cage.

After that I did not see her for a long time. I heard she had gone to
Dresden on a visit to friends. Once or twice I met her brothers, but,
although I quite intended to do so, I could not summon courage to ask
them who was the middle-aged man; nor did they seem inclined to talk
about him or about her. But the truth gradually leaked out. He was the
acknowledged suitor. Soon the news came. They were engaged. She was
going to Switzerland in the summer to meet his parents, and in the
autumn they were to be married. It was true, then: Helene had preferred
a man to a boy!

Once more I met her before she left. It was on the Neumarkt, close to
the old Gewandhaus. I bowed stiffly and was passing on, for I had
swallowed the poker of resentment, but she stopped short and stroked my
big dog Hector, and said to him: "_You_ wish me all happiness, I am
sure, don't you? We have been friends, and we shall always remain
friends, shan't we?"

And as the dog didn't answer, I had to say, "Yes, Helene, always."

And then the poker began to lose substance, and gradually it melted
away. But it was only gradually.

It is many years ago now, but I still adhere to my original proposition,
"Helene was of a lovable type," and I am sure Leonardo da Vinci, if no
one else, would say that I am right.

I must admit, though, that shortly after that interview on the Neumarkt,
I became painfully aware that I was not as unhappy as I should have
liked to be. This is such a world of compensations, and they do so flood
in upon one in the spring-tide of life! Not that I at once met with any
new and revised edition of Helene, handsomely bound; but true friendship
came to heal the wound, and sisterly affection to take the place of
love. Bella and Frida were my friends. Bella so restful and
soul-soothing, with her far-away look; Frida so sympathetic and
affectionate. They did not say much about Helene, as it was an awkward
subject to discuss, but through all their tact and reticence I could
plainly see that they disapproved of Helene's conduct, and thought her
worldly and heartless. At that time I was much with those kind sisters,
but I soon after left the Magister's house to live under the paternal
roof, my parents having returned to Leipsic after a prolonged absence.
But there was constant and pleasant intercourse between the two
families, and my friendship with Bella and Frida flowed on peacefully
and serenely, as if nothing could ever impede its progress through life.

All the while Time, in a quiet, unobtrusive way, was doing his wondrous
work, taking the school-girls in hand and making young ladies of them.
Pinafores had long since been relegated to the dust-hole or the
paper-mills, but there were frumpy aprons to be exchanged for dainty
ribbons, dresses to be elongated, and something dangling or jingling to
be added before the young ladies could be considered presentable in a
ball-room. And Time had done just the right thing, not scamping the
work, as he will sometimes, or hurrying it and putting in touches that
would come so much better a little later. So the result was that the
newly developed young ladies remained young girls still, natural and
unsophisticated.

And the schoolboy was being transformed too. It was noticeable that the
left-hand side of his right hand middle finger-nail now rarely showed
the inroads of an inky pen; a looking-glass, too, had evidently been
consulted in some important matters, and the hands were observed
frequently to twist and twirl some imaginary growth on the upper lip.

There is more in the eagerness with which the youth welcomes the advent
of a beard than is at first apparent; he feels intuitively that the time
is approaching when that mobile feature, the mouth, may possibly want a
little disguise. It is easier to control the eyes, where there is an
emotion to conceal, than the lips with their tell-tale quiver: they need
protection. Bold indeed is the man who dares to shave, and reveal, say
to a young and confiding wife, who has known him only with a beard, all
that underlies the hirsute mask, thus laying bare his true nature,
whatever that may be, good, bad, or indifferent. We may safely assume, I
think, that under the beard she will find a man she does not know.

But all those considerations are, at best, after-thoughts. When my time
came to twirl the first threads of my moustache, I suppose I did not
feel anything intuitively, but greeted the badge of manliness with
satisfaction. Then, to be sure, I was not going to be an actor, who
wants every square inch of his face for his work, nor a priest who has
nothing to conceal, nor a lawyer who is not worth his salt if he cannot
conceal anything or everything. I was going to be an artist, and as
such, I meant to look my part, at any rate as regards the beard.

My school-days had come to an end; some dreaded examinations were
satisfactorily passed, and I sallied forth, backed by a grandiloquent
Latin document describing me as "F. S. M. Londiniensis," an "honest
youth" who had never done anything "reprehensible," and who was now
"omnino" worthy to be admitted to the higher universities.

Instead of accepting the advantages thus offered to me, I disposed of
some of those old school-books I hated, and packed up others that I
loved, in a green carpet-bag, which was adorned with a worsted-work
presentment of a shepherdess tending her sheep under a very small tree.
This bag was of a style much admired in the Fatherland of those days,
and had been presented to me by a very dear friend. Another parting gift
I much prized was a woollen comforter knitted by Bella's own hands. Thus
equipped, I started for Paris. The Traumanns saw me off. They were
characteristic in their parting words. The Magister said--

"_Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas._ Never look at things
superficially, my boy, go deeper for the cause of things."

The Magisterin said--

"Remember, mine Lixchen, wear those woollen socks and keep your feet
dry."

Bella said--

"You will write, won't you? I shall be so anxious to know all about--I
mean something--about what you are doing."

Frida said--

"Ach, Felix, do see if you can't get me one of those lovely black cats
they have in Paris."

What a change from Leipsic to Paris, from home to the unknown,
supervision to independence! When I speak of Paris, it must be borne in
mind that it is the Paris of 1850-51, not the one we evoke when we think
of the Imperial capital of later days. It was the old city with its high
houses and crooked streets, with its nooks and rookeries, suggestive of
revolution and barricades; not the Paris we know with its gloriously
disciplined palaces, standing shoulder to shoulder, and with its
splendid military avenues that can carry conviction in the straightest
and most direct of lines from the mouth of the cannon to the heart of
the canaille.

The first restaurant I went into--it was a "Marchand de vins,
Traiteur"--I was addressed as "Citoyen," rather a startler for a newly
imported Leipsic schoolboy; but those were the days of the Republic that
had followed Louis Philippe's flight, and there was a great show of
"Liberté, Égalité', Fraternité," on walls, churches, and other public
buildings; whilst, as far as I could see, everybody seemed to be just as
anxious as before to be fraternally equal with his neighbour in the
matter of taking liberties, and whilst Prince Louis Napoleon and his
friends were looking round for a favourable opportunity to daub out the
foolish words and replace them with a capital "N," protected by an
imperial eagle with rather sharp claws.

The _coup d'état_ came. I saw it all; first the soldiers bivouacking on
the quais and in the streets, eating and drinking to their hearts'
content; then the Prince President riding across the Place de la
Concorde on a proudly prancing horse, followed at some distance by a
brilliant staff of officers on more modestly prancing horses (according
to the rules of etiquette), and I heard the troops shouting "Vive
Napoleon! À bas la République!" and the crowd hooting "À bas Napoleon!
Vive la République!" and saw the future emperor bowing impartially left
and right, to the loyal and to the disloyal, and fulfilling his destiny
with the imperturbable passiveness of the fatalist. He really looked the
picture of Fate in the uniform of a General, and adorned with a
moustache waxed to inordinate lengths and culminating in sharp points.

Then I was run in, not for shouting, but because I was with a friend who
carried a stick with a lead-weighted knob. At the police-station they
proceeded to "dresser procès verbal," as they call it, and we were
temporarily released; that process, however, within the next few hours,
got so mixed up with human blood, ashes, and brick-rubbish, for the
station had been fired, that when I called a few days later there was no
trace of it left. So I was never sent to Cayenne or any other penal
settlement.

On the contrary, Prince Napoleon had saved France, and he could not do
without me to consolidate it. Achille Fould was his Chancellor of the
Exchequer, his right hand, and as Madame Achille and her sister were old
friends of my parents, and had been amongst the first to welcome me into
this big world, it was but natural they should now take me in hand and
wish to introduce me into their particular world. So wherever golden
dust was to be thrown into the eyes of the pleasure-seeking Parisian,
my presence was politely requested. On my side I accepted favours with
princely condescension, and got into the Tuileries, when there was a
ball or a fête on, hours before other poor mortals of inferior clay. The
coachman of our ministerial carriage holding a card with the injunction,
"Laisser passer, s'il n'y a pas empèchement de force majeure," we had
not to wait our turn in the interminable queue that stretched through
Paris for miles. I might be dancing at the Tuileries one night in the
same room with the Prince President, who would perhaps be walking a
quadrille with the wife of the British ambassador, and the next
night--there comes the other side of my life--I was accoutred in a
blouse and a workman's cap, and was diving into the haunts of
destitution and misery, into those privileged places where unpoetical
license reigns supreme. I learnt French argot, the thieves' language, at
the fountain-source, and studied political economy under
Communists--some of them philosophers, some firebrands. All that, to be
sure, I could not have done alone, but I had some trusty friends amongst
my studio comrades who initiated me and taught me French, as according
to them she should be spoke. I had to learn a poetical effusion by heart
of which I just recollect the two lines--

    "Le jour viendra où le père éclairé
     Donnera sa fille au forçat libéré."

One of the highest officials I met at the Tuileries, the type of a
perfect gentleman, was the biggest scoundrel I ever came across; whilst
on the other hand, the man who more than any other taught me to love
humanity, was a scoundrel whom I met in a low wineshop in the Belleville
quarter, the hotbed of irresponsible revolution.

Memories are rather troublesome friends to deal with. They will not form
into line after the example of the Parisian _queue_, but crowd around
the pen with the cry of "Laissez passer." One ought really to have one's
little brains divided into thought-tight compartments, so that one could
turn on perfect gentlemen, biggest scoundrels, or would-be Emperors,
without being flooded by the immortals of the Institute, or those gods
of the day representing the arts and sciences, whom it was one's good
fortune to have known. Some special bulkheads or barriers should be
provided to restrain the lovely types of womanhood that memories evoke.

I have to get back to Bella and Frida, and tell of heavy clouds that
arose to darken our path, and of how I came to draw a portrait that has
left a lasting impression in my mind. So I will but cursorily mention
that there were one or two of the above-named lovely types that
commiserated the unlicked cub, and set themselves the difficult task of
raising him, if not to their level, to within measurable distance of it.
It was rather an awkward position for the cub when one of them more than
usually warm-hearted and liberal, foreshadowed the bestowal of a first
prize if the unlicked one proved himself an apt pupil. Of this I said
something in a letter to Bella, for I occasionally remembered that she
had wished me to tell her "all about--I mean something about" what I
was doing. I gave the incident in a diluted form, merely hinting that
the lessons might be learnt in Paris, but could be better applied
elsewhere. Yes! When I come to think of it, I am sure Bella was my
guiding star, shedding a ray of light just when I particularly wanted it
to show me the right way.

It was now more than a twelvemonth since I had gone to Paris, and the
time was drawing near when, in accordance with the good old fashion, I
should spend Christmas at home. Notwithstanding all the attractions of
upper and lower Paris, I had been working hard, drawing from morning to
night, and sometimes from night to morning. Those were the days when a
humble student might still worship at the shrine of a Vandyke or a
Rembrandt, when the war-cry, "Nous avons changé tout cela," had not yet
sounded, and the Messiahs of modern art were not yet busy proclaiming
their newly-found truth from the house-tops, and painting there, too,
lest a particle of light should get lost. So I was still quite naïvely
addicted to drawing portraits by lamplight, putting in deep shadows and
deeper accents, and picking out high lights on the breadths of foreheads
or the tips of noses.

At last I was in the train and we were approaching Leipsic. I was
thinking of parents and friends, and as I mentally rehearsed our meeting
and greeting, I am sure my lips moved unconsciously, and the subtle
smile of anticipation must have played around them. It was 3.30 P. M., I
had travelled forty-five hours, but at last the old familiar landmarks
appeared. There was the row of poplars, the distant spire. Out came the
pocket-comb--a final touch, and in a few minutes I was in my mother's
arms. She had come upon the chance of my arriving by that train;
time-tables did not pretend to give much information in those days. It
is a long while ago, but I well remember that particular meeting and
embrace. The two separate parts of one whole were re-united and were
being welded together. Words had to wait. When they came--it does seem
absurd--they were the most trivial ones, and rushed out buzzing like
froth from the bottle. "Where's the green carpet-bag?" "I've got the
parcel;" "All right, here is my passport;" "And when did you leave? to
be sure, you must be hungry, poor boy;" and so on, till home was
reached, where other loving arms awaited me. As we sobered down, the
froth was brushed aside, the right words came, and we drank deep
draughts from the phial that contains the very essence of love.

My first visit was for the Traumanns. That tailor at the corner of the
Passage d'Orléans in the Palais Royal--he is there still--had made me a
waistcoat of blue velvet, dotted with little yellow spots; it was of the
very latest Paris fashion, and in it I went to make my call.

Once more a joyous meeting, a warm welcome. Herr Magister and the Frau
Magisterin were just the same as I had left them. Frida had grown, but
was little changed otherwise, just as bright and happy as ever; but
Bella I could not see; she was not well. That was disappointing; I kept
looking at her desk, just opposite me, with the glass inkstand on the
right, and the little bust of Mendelssohn I had given her, on the left.

"Well, good-bye, Frida," I said at the door, "tell Bella she must be
well by Friday; she's got to dance at least two waltzes and the cotillon
with me."

Now dancing at the Tuileries is a very good thing in its way; elbowing a
future emperor, and hobnobbing with a scoundrel disguised as a
gentleman, are things to brag of. But it is nothing to having a dance at
one's own home, with one's sisters, and one's sisters' friends, with
one's friends and one's friends' sisters.

I was surprised to find several "Impériales" on the programme of our
little dance, and was told that was the latest craze all over Paris. Now
nothing of the kind had ever been heard of in the terpsichorean circles
I had just left, so naturally I had no notion of what the step might be
like. When I attempted it, however, it mattered little whether I danced
it correctly or not, for, coming straight as I did from the French
capital, I was supposed to know all about it; so the good Leipsickers
soon adopted my rendering, and my step became the fashion.

I wanted those two waltzes and the cotillon because Bella was the best
dancer in Leipsic. She must have been born under the star of rhythm;
some fairy must have beaten time with a magic wand, pronouncing a
_One_-two-three, _One_-two-three blessing upon her. One would never have
imagined that that reserved girl, with the far-away look, was the queen
of the ballroom; true, her figure was perfect, but it was not till she
waltzed that its graceful and subtle lines revealed themselves.
Curiously the far-away look never left her when dancing; she seemed to
be undulating towards some distant goal, wherever that might be.

How few fairies there are to beat time at the baby's cradle! and is it
not curious how seldom they go to the little boys? Dancing humanity has
had to invent the valse à deux temps, that bids us close our ears to the
strains of the syren, Strauss, and take two steps where there should be
three. Perhaps there is some malignant fairy to visit the cradles of the
little boys. One would think so, to judge by the expressions on the
faces of many dancers, expressions varying from that of painful
uneasiness to that of abject misery. Poor souls! Some rushing wildly to
destruction, others doomed to crawl out their ballroom existence,
gravitating within the narrow circle of the chandelier!

       *       *       *       *       *

Friday came, and the ball.

But I have nothing to tell about it. Bella was not there. No, Bella
could not be there--she was ill.

Ill--then very ill--dangerously ill. Soon she was dead!

It all came so rapidly, it must be told rapidly, breathlessly.

When? How?--She died on Sunday night at eleven o'clock--It can't be
true!--It was true.

How incredulous we are when first called upon to realise the truth! how
slow to understand and believe that what was but yesterday a living
form must be accounted dead to-day! Anguish rises rebellious: It cannot
be.--It is a dream, a grievous mistake, to be explained away presently.
Love's giant strength would wrench its victim from death's grasp. Hope,
the very last to yield--or is it but an after-glow of hope?--will catch
at shadowy straws, ere it submits and sinks to rise no more.

None but the father, mother, and sister were at the bedside when the
young life ebbed away. Poor tortured souls! May they be strong enough to
bear the heavy trial. That night the father never shed a tear, nor the
next day, nor the next. It would have been better had grief found a
natural channel. He spoke but little, and mostly sat by the bed as if in
deep thought, until they carried her away.

The white wreaths had come,--and the black hearse; and graceful lilies,
their long stems bound together with white ribbons. Black crapes too,
and sable hues, to harmonise with a world of sorrow and darkness.

Then the blinds went up, and the world went on as before. I looked out
of the window; I recollect a boy's cap had got cast adrift on the branch
of a tree just opposite the house of sadness; a little crowd had
collected to do justice to the incident. "Would it get off, or gradually
perish where it hung?" was the question of paramount interest to that
particular little world.

But does the world really go on as before? Not quite. A fraction of our
globe has been disturbed, a balance lost. The blow that struck down one
brother or sister wounds many hearts, reverberates in circles small or
large, and it will take time to restore that fraction's equilibrium. It
is as when we break the peaceful surface of the water. First a thud, a
gash; next a circle, small, but broken and restless; then a larger one
and a larger, each and all gradually calming down to be at rest, with
the smooth untroubled waters beyond.

When a link in the chain of existences, near and dear to us, is snapped
asunder, we instinctively seek to close up the gap, to join hands and
succour one another. So Frida's heart went out to her father as he sat
brooding, with his eyes fixed on the desk with the little bust. It was
not till much later that I knew what she had suffered. She wished to
throw her arms round his neck and cry her little aching heart out, and
love him with her dead sister's love and her own, and let him cry too,
that love and sorrow could mingle. But he sat there, so forbidding, so
strange, that her arms fell, and her tears flowed back to the aching
heart. Then she went up to him and stood by his side. The word "father"
quivered on her lips; she knew not why, but she dared not pronounce it.
Her mother came in and stood waiting too, hoping he would turn round,
but he did not move. "Dearest mine," she said, "speak to Frida."

He lifted his head slowly, as if it were a great weight, his lips moved
with an effort, and looking vacantly at his poor love-seeking child, he
said, "Never, never!"

Days passed, and melancholy settled deeper and deeper on the sufferer.
He would occasionally show something of the old tenderness for his wife,
and sometimes a spark of gratitude would for moments light up the
darkness of his moods. But mostly he sat brooding, prostrate,
heart-stricken. If she spoke to him of Frida he would wave his hand as
if to beg her to forbear, and would keep on repeating to himself the
words, "Never, never!"

She had insisted one day; she had hoped to break the spell, when he rose
angrily, he the mildest of men. "Never, never mention her name to me
again," he said sternly, then, gradually recovering himself, he returned
to his seat and relapsed into silence.

The well-known physician and psychologist, Dr. Reclam, was in daily
attendance on the patient. He was an old friend of the Magister's, and
put heart and soul into the task of restoring him to health. He had
said, "No, she must not show herself for the present, it would be to no
purpose; but you must not let a day pass without mentioning her name in
some way or other; we must not allow the blight to settle upon him
undisturbed." Soon he advised change of air and surroundings. So the
Magister and his wife left for Sonnenthal, a place far away in the
country, where a cousin of his owned a large farm. He had spent part of
his childhood there, and it was hoped that early associations, and the
soothing influence of some old trusted servants who would be around him,
might go far to restore his mind to peace and rest.

Frida remained in Leipsic; she left the darkened home, and went to stay
with an uncle, a well-known lawyer. He was a good man at heart, but one
of those whose hearts lie so deeply hidden away that there is no getting
at them. He had a boy we all hated; his heart-strings must have been
hopelessly knotted and tangled, or he would never have tortured that
poor kitten as he did. With the assistance of his friend, the
carpenter's son, he--But no, I will not tell, for I am firmly convinced
that the very mention of evil begets evil. Such is man; moulded perhaps
after the Divine image in some respects, he has in his composition quite
as much of his brother beasts as of divinity. Curious lord of creation!
As if there were not enough misery in the world as it is, he must needs
go out of his way to torture kittens.

In this crisis of her life Frida found two friends, absolutely devoted
and sympathetic: Helene and her husband. They, more than anybody, helped
her through those first sad weeks. How mistaken the girls had been when
they thought Helene worldly and heartless. My little flirt was then, and
has proved herself through life, the most steadfast and reliable of us
all. Her two brothers, the chubby boys, were now students at the Leipsic
University, qualifying themselves for future town-councillorships and
civic honours, coupled, I presume, with some German substitute for
turtle soup.

Frida spent much of her time in the congenial atmosphere of my parents'
house. We had always been devoted to her; how much more now! She loved
music, and that, with us, was a sort of staple commodity to be found as
surely as the daily bread. It was not an easy task to divert her
thoughts from her trouble. All her girlish brightness had vanished, and
she seemed, without a warning, to have had womanhood, suffering
womanhood, thrust upon her. But she loved to be soothed by music, and
more than once I remember my father improvising strains of consolation
on his grand Erard, that seemed to go straight to her heart and
strengthen her.

"Will you sit for me, Frida?" I asked one evening. "I should like to
draw a portrait of you."

I had known Frida for four or five years, and had never asked her to
sit, so the question surprised her, and it startled my mother, who was
seated at the other end of the drawing-room on a little raised platform,
surrounded by palms and a variety of plants with curiously shaped and
fancifully speckled leaves. Her spinning-wheel, that had been going
round with the regularity of clockwork, suddenly stopped--perhaps the
thread had snapped. Catching my eye she reproachfully signalled behind
Frida's back: "How can you, my dear? Surely this is not the time to use
the poor girl as a model?" Frida evidently thought so too; she was at a
loss for an answer, and there was an awkward silence. For an instant I
wished I had not spoken; my request, I felt, was really ill timed; but,
once out, I adhered to it, insisting, "Do, Frida; if nothing else, it
will keep me out of mischief this evening."

She knew the thought of mischief was for from my mind, and she simply
answered:

"Very well, Felix, if you wish it, I will sit." And with that she gave
me an encouraging look.

I was anxious to get her to sit, for a picture of that girl in her
sadness had gradually been ripening in my mind; it was so complete that
it seemed only to want putting down, and no more difficult of
accomplishment than the writing out of any lines that I might have
learnt by heart. It was a case of "Don't begin till it's finished." That
I have often since found a good maxim, but one not so easily lived up
to. The picture, then, such as I had conceived it, I was wedded to, for
better or for worse. I must draw her all but full-face. The light from
above, and slightly from the left, will model and bring out the delicate
beauty of her features. It was all ready to be transcribed: the smooth
hair with the black ribbon tied in a large symmetrical bow on the top of
the head, the plain dress, the background, and, above all, that
expression, reflecting the yearnings of a poor chilled soul. On the
surface, bewilderment, helplessness; beneath, a substratum of trust, of
faith; and far below, hope, the spark of life that glimmers and glows
on, even under mountains of despair.

We got the lamp that had served my purpose more than once, and the two
candles, with the little special shades I had brought from Paris (I have
them still), and Frida sat. Not once, but often, for the more I drew the
more I was eager to pursue that will-o'-the-wisp, the realisation of an
idea. Many a time I had to point my crayons, Conté No. 2, and to blacken
the little paper stumps, the classical tortillons, before I could make
up my mind to admit that I had finished.

And what was the result? Perhaps it was very poor; probably it was;
certainly, if you like--but I don't want to know it if it was. I want to
think it was good and true, like the knight that serves the lady. If it
is an illusion, bear with me and let me keep it.

I had a grey mount put round it and a cheap little black frame; and
then--may the gods forgive my presumption!--I felt as if the crayons and
the humble tortillons might possibly have been working for the ends of
Providence; I packed up the picture and sent it with all my love to the
Magisterin.

"Try it," I said; "he may like it." And she tried it, and--to that poor
little drawing of mine it was given to work a miracle--gradually, but
surely, it rent asunder the veil that obscured my dear Magister's mental
vision.

It was not till long afterwards that I learnt what had happened on that
critical day. The Magisterin told me all as we sat on a stone bench in
the garden at the back of their house. It was a hot day and the Magister
was in shirt-sleeves, pruning and tending his rose-trees, perhaps
removing the blight that had settled on some leaf to warp and waste it.
For once in the way the good Hausfrau vouchsafed to stop knitting, and
took my hand as she began:--

"Your drawing came in the morning, my Lixchen. It was as I had fancied
it, for Frida had well described it in her letters. It touched me
deeply, but I could not even give a stray thought to my own feelings.
'Try it,' you had said, and a wild rush of conflicting emotions quite
overcame me. How should I try it? I wished you were there, you or
Reclam, to tell me what would be best. Might it not give him a shock and
do him harm? I never felt as utterly helpless as all that morning. I
waited. At one o'clock he was lying on the sofa and resting; he seemed
to slumber more peacefully than usual. You know he had the desk with the
little Mendelssohn bust sent from Leipsic; it was the only thing he had
asked for. I stood the drawing up against it. He would be sure to see it
when he awoke.

"Then I sat down and prayed.

"He rose as usual and seated himself at the table. Hours passed. His
face was turned away from me, but I could see his hands as they lay
clasped before him. At last he got up and went to the bookcase. 'They
have changed everything,' I heard him say to himself. 'Where is my
Sophocles? Ah! to be sure, to be sure.'

"He sat down, but got up again directly, found paper and pen, and laid
out everything, just as he used to do at the old writing-table before
beginning work. He took up the pen, but he did not write; occasionally
he passed the quill over his forehead. I dared not move or speak. Oh,
how long the hours seemed!

"The daylight was fading. Martha came home with the cows, and old
Günther made his rounds and bolted the front gate. After that all was
quiet. Yes--all was quiet,--quite quiet for a while.

"Suddenly he rose. He turned round and stood still. He looked at me,--a
look I knew. My heart beat fast and the clock ticked so loud.

"He looked, and, ach, mein Lixchen, he smiled at me, just a little
feeble smile, and an instant afterwards he rushed up to me and he burst
into a flood of tears as he buried his face in my lap.

"'O Hannerl, my heart's treasure, tell me: Where is my Frida? Why is she
not with me?'"

The dear old Magisterin could say no more; tears of gratitude choked her
voice. I pressed her hand with my right, and with my left hand I brushed
away something that had got between my eyelashes.




CHAPTER III

LEIPSIC IN 1847 AND 1848--MENDELSSOHN'S DEATH


I well remember that first year of my stay in Leipsic, when all our
interests seemed to centre in the friend we were to lose so soon.

At all times I was proud of my godfather, inordinately so, perhaps, when
conversation turned on the great kindness which Goethe had lavished on
his young friend Felix. To know a man who had known Goethe seemed to me
like knowing a man who had known Shakespeare, and I was accordingly
proud of my godfather. It is not surprising that Goethe, the great
dissector of human nature, should, with a few masterly touches, have
portrayed the boy of twelve, and forecast the character of the man. "You
know," he said to his friend Rellstab, "the doctrine of temperaments;
every one has four in his composition, only in different proportions.
Well, this boy, I should say, possesses the smallest possible modicum of
phlegm, and the maximum of the opposite quality." Whatever that
"opposite quality" was which Goethe had in his mind, it was one which
kept Mendelssohn on the alert; it was the very essence of life that he
was drawing on, alas! too prodigally.

Thus, of his own compositions he says in a letter to my father: "How I
am to set about writing a calm and quiet piece (as you advised me to do
last spring) I really do not know. All that passes through my head in
the shape of pianoforte music is about as calm and quiet as Cheapside;
and when I sit down to start improvising ever so quietly, it is of no
use--by degrees I fall back into the old ways."

But if Goethe noted the boy's extreme sensibility, he also appreciated
his sound intellect. "He is so clear-headed about his own subjects," he
says, "that I must learn a great deal from him." And Mendelssohn relates
how, seated at the piano, he familiarises the poet with the work of
Beethoven, how the grand old man is overwhelmed by the beauties and
mysteries revealed, and sits all the while in a dark corner, like a
Jupiter Tonans, with his eyes flashing fire. "I felt," he says, "that
this was the very Goethe of whom people will one day declare that he is
not at all one person, but is made up of several smaller Goethes."

The house we lived in stood in its own grounds, and very picturesque
they were; some parts delightfully kept, others still more delightfully
neglected. Wild tangles blocked disused paths; weeds and creepers
climbed up the legs of classical statues, and wound round their arms
when they had any. There was a Kiosk too, a little museum in which had
been collected relics of the great battle which had raged furiously in
those grounds. It was dedicated to Prince Poniatowski, who, during the
disastrous retreat of the French army, was drowned with scores of other
fugitives in that rapid little stream, the Elster, which flowed at the
bottom of what was in my days called "Gerhard's Garten," the same stream
in which I now used to take my daily swim.

There were only two houses in that "Garten." In one of them lived the
Herr Legationsrath Gerhard, our landlord, a personal friend of the great
Goethe, and himself a gifted poet, and so good a scholar, that he was
able to make an admirable translation of Burns's poems. The good people
of Leipsic appreciated his talents, but were very angry with him because
he was unmistakably a poet with an eye to business, and he charged five
neugroschen (sixpence) for admission to the historical site and to the
Poniatowski Kiosk.

In the other house we occupied the second floor, and on the first lived
Madame Mendelssohn's sister, Madame Schunck, and her family. The
ground-floor was the private residence of a wealthy wine merchant;
perhaps Schmidt was his name. The latter nearly got us into very serious
trouble in the days when the tide of revolution, set in motion by the
French rising in 1848, had swept all over Germany, and when even the
Leipsickers, usually so peaceful, were up in arms. The standard of
insurrection had been raised throughout the Fatherland, dynasties were
threatened, and thrones shaken. Some of the Saxon patriots had gone to
help their brothers in the Austrian capital, amongst others Robert Blum,
one of the most popular leaders of the democratic party. The barricade
he was defending was taken, and he was made a prisoner. Popular feeling
in Leipsic ran high, and when the news came that he had been tried by
court-martial and shot, it reached fever heat.

Interested as I always was in the doings of man, woman, or child,
especially when they had come together in the name of mischief, I was
naturally anxious to watch as closely as possible the process of
history-making they were about to engage in. So I was to be found where
the crowd was thickest and the mob most threatening.

An indignation meeting was improvised; the more rabid fire-eaters were
hoisted on some handy box, or took possession of a passing cart, from
which they addressed the rioters. The Austrian rule, its Kaiser, and its
leading statesmen, were held up to execration, and a shout was raised,
"To the Consulate!" Sticks and stones appeared on the scene, one knew
not whence, and soon we were on our way to the Consulate, where it did
not take long to smash every window in the house. The arms of Austria
were torn down and carried in triumph to the market-place, where they
were ignominiously strung up to a lamp-post amidst yells of exultation.
The mob had by this time worked itself into a frantic state of
excitement, and was thirsting for action. "What next?" was the cry. "To
Gerhard's Garten," shouted a voice; "let us hang Schmidt next. He
bragged that he would stand a dozen of his best champagne if it were
true that Blum had been shot. We'll drink it to the scoundrel's
health--to his perdition--hang the dog!"

"Save the dog," was naturally my first impulse, and I ran off at full
speed to give warning. I arrived in time to raise an alarm, and the
place was speedily prepared to resist at least a first assault; the
massive iron gates that protected us on the river-side were closed, and
the heavy wooden doors on the land-side were barred and bolted. The
rioters were soon on the spot, and threatened to make matchwood of them
if they were not opened. In true mediæval fashion the old Legationsrath
parleyed with the enemy through a grated opening in the door,
asseverating that the man wanted was not in the house or anywhere on the
premises. He was so successful in his diplomatic efforts that a
compromise was agreed to, and a few of the most clamorous were admitted
to satisfy themselves that the object of their search was not in hiding.
The wine merchant had plenty of time to escape, the crowd, baffled of
its prey, moved on to seek fresh fields of action, and our house escaped
with only a few panes of broken glass. As for myself, I was warmly
complimented on having acted the goose and saved the Capitol.

The next day matters wore a graver aspect, and attempts were made to
raise barricades. During the short conflict which ensued, a friend of
ours, Herr Gontard, was shot through the heart, as from his window he
was pointing a rifle at the insurgents. He was a prominent citizen, and
his death created a profound sensation. When a short time afterwards I
accompanied my father to the house, to inquire after the bereaved
family, we were shown by the servant into the room where his master lay
in the stillness of death, a service which we were expected to
acknowledge by handing him the customary "Trinkgeld," the tip which a
German servant considers his due, whenever his master practises
hospitality. On this occasion it was a weird entertainment we had been
bidden to.

In Dresden the insurrection was of a much more serious character. Civil
war raged fiercely in the streets of that capital, and the Saxon army
proving insufficient to subdue the people, the assistance of the
Prussians was invoked or had to be accepted.

Great was the excitement when the first batch of soldiers passed through
Leipsic, but it led to no demonstration. By this time the restless
spirits knew that the cause of liberty was lost. The new _Zündnadel
Gewehr_ just introduced into the Prussian army, a rifle that was shortly
to prove its superiority in the Danish campaign, seemed a very
strange-looking piece of mechanism to us. What would be the English for
_Zündnadel Gewehr_ I do not know, nor will I ascertain, for I object to
showing an interest in lethal weapons manufactured for fratricidal
purposes.

Richard Wagner's active participation in the revolutionary movement was
at the time severely commented upon by many of his friends, for he had
every reason to be personally grateful to the king, who, it was said,
had acted very liberally towards him, and had generally distinguished
and befriended him. Accounts varied as to the actual part he took in the
fighting, but at any rate he had to flee the country, and took refuge
first in Paris and then in Zurich.

After a prolonged conflict the barricades were taken; from the front
they had been made all but impregnable, so the Prussian troops cut
themselves a road through the party walls of the adjoining houses, and
attacked them in the rear; they did terrible execution, and it was once
more crowned autocracy which scored a victory over struggling democracy.

When all was over, a deputation of so-called loyal subjects waited upon
the King of Prussia to do homage to the victor.

"I wish all my subjects were now here before me, to do justice to my
august sentiments," were the concluding words in his Majesty's answer.
And the royal utterance was suitably quoted beneath a drawing published
shortly afterwards, in which the king stands, fuse in hand, by the
cannon, ready to fire a well-directed charge of grape-shot into the
midst of his faithful subjects.

       *       *       *       *       *

All this happened some months after Mendelssohn's death, and it was well
he was spared experiences which would have made the most painful
impression on his sensitive nature. Indeed, so impressionable was he,
that even trifling incidents would sometimes visibly affect him, and
then he could make it very trying for those who had the misfortune to
incur his displeasure. He had strong likes and dislikes, and would not
always take the trouble to conceal them; as on one occasion, when he
very pointedly showed his dislike to Miss F., an Irish girl, who was
studying at the Conservatorio in Leipsic. I think he was prejudiced
against her because she had a mass of fluffy reddish hair, which would
break away from the rule of the hairpin and escape in a spirit of
rebellion; just the sort of thing we admire nowadays, but that was
thought positively improper then.

She once appealed to me, when my mother was reading her a homily on the
wicked ways of that hair. "Now, Felix, you who have an artist's eye; is
it really so dreadful?" she asked. To be sure I told her that I, for
one, thought it mighty fine, and she triumphed, but I was ever after
chaffed as the one who had "an artist's eye."

There were tears shed on the evening of the Pupils' concert at the
Gewandhaus. When Miss F.'s turn came, it was found she had forgotten her
music, and Mendelssohn, behind the scenes, was in a rage. There was an
awkward pause whilst the music was being fetched and the audience was
waiting, but my father called up the tuner to officiate and fill the
gap, and so appearances were saved. But Mendelssohn never forgave poor
Miss F.

A passage in a letter to my mother, dated September 3, 1832, I must
transcribe, if only because I think it my duty to quote it as a warning
to such bachelors as may be inclined to make rash vows of celibacy.
Mendelssohn, who was then twenty-three, wrote of his friend Klingemann:
"If Klingemann flirts, he is only doing the correct thing, and wisely
too; what else are we born for? But, if he gets married, I shall just
die with laughter; only fancy Klingemann a married man! But you predict
it, and I know you can always tell by people's faces what they are
going to say or to do. If I wanted bread at dinner, you used to say in
an undertone, 'Some bread for Mr. Mendelssohn;' and perhaps your
matrimonial forecast might be equally true. But on the other hand, I too
am a prophet in matrimonial matters, and maintain exactly the reverse.
Klingemann is, and will ever be, a Knight of the Order of Bachelors, and
so shall I. Who knows but we may both wish to marry thirty years hence!
But then, no girl will care to have us. Pray, cut this prophecy out of
the letter before you burn it, and keep it carefully; in thirty years we
shall know whether it proves correct or not."

Klingemann married in 1845, and Mendelssohn became engaged to Cécile
Jeanrenaud in September 1836, just four years after his prophecy.

He writes in a very different strain shortly after his marriage:--

"All that is good," he says, "has become doubly dear to me; all that is
bad, easier to put up with. Your wife must not visit my sins on Cécile;
on the contrary she must be ready to like her, and to love her a little
when she becomes acquainted with her. And truly my dear Cécile deserves
it, and I think I need not make any appeal to your wife, but simply
introduce her and say, 'This is Cécile'--the rest will follow
naturally." He was right; they met the same year and became friends.

Cécile was in many respects a contrast to her husband; she was calm and
reserved, where he was lively and excitable. Hers was a deeply
emotional nature, but she rarely showed outwardly what moved or
impressed her, whereas his emotions would ever rise to the surface,
generally to overflow and find expression in words.

My father, after first meeting her in Berlin, says: "Felix's wife is
very charming, very unassuming and childlike. Her mouth and nose are
like Sontag's. Her way of speaking is pleasing and simple; her German is
quite that of the Frankforter. She said naïvely at dinner, 'I speak too
slowly for my Felix, and he so quickly that I don't always understand
him.'"

I remember thinking her exceedingly beautiful. Her appearance reminded
me of a certain picture of Germania by Kaulbach; but she was not the
typical fair-haired German; she was dark, and wore her hair not in
classical waves, but according to the fashion of the day, in many
ringlets.

The daily intercourse between the Mendelssohns and the Moscheles was a
source of real happiness to both. They were constantly meeting to make
or to discuss music, to take long walks together, or short ones along
the Grimmaische Strasse to the Conservatorio. The work there was
particularly congenial to my father's taste; after the many years of
feverish activity he had spent in London, Leipsic was truly a haven of
rest to him, and he could well say, "I am beginning to realise my dream
of emancipation from professional slavery."

Following the example of the parents, the children of the two families
soon fraternised too. I recollect a very lively children's party at our
house. Mendelssohn came in and joined in the games; then he went to the
piano and set us all a dancing as only the rhythm of his improvisation
could. When he ended, we clamoured for more. Give any child a
Mendelssohn finger and no wonder it wants the ten. We got another
splendid waltz that glided into a gallop, but when that too came to an
end, we insatiable little tyrants would not let him get up from the
piano.

"Well," he said, "if all the little girls will go down on their knees
and beg and pray of me, I may be induced to give you one more dance." A
circle was soon formed around him, and they had to beg hard, harder, and
hardest, before he allowed himself to be softened.

David, the violinist, also belonged to the intimate circle of our
friends. He had come to London in 1839 with a warm introduction from
Mendelssohn, and had soon endeared himself to all of us. He was a
musician of the good old kind, practising and loving music for its own
sake; he was a man of high culture, ever entertaining and genial, and
took special delight in smoking innumerable cigars with his friends. In
one respect he was much like my father and Mendelssohn. He could not
understand how anybody could get through twenty-four hours without
playing some Sonata or Trio. I recollect he was quite indignant on one
occasion when he was in London and was staying with Sterndale Bennett.
"Would you believe it?" he said. "I have been in the house now for more
than a week, and we have not once sat down to make music." Poor
Sterndale Bennett, who had probably been giving his eight or ten
lessons a day in London or Brighton!

Rietz, too, the conductor of the Gewandhaus Concerts, was a friend and a
_music-maker_ in the German sense--a musician of the highest order, and
a brilliant virtuoso on the violoncello.

For Mendelssohn's birthday, the 3rd of February, we had been getting up
theatricals, and great excitement prevailed amongst old and young, for
all were to take part in them. I feel pretty sure that my mother had
planned it all, for, amongst a good many other things, she was the
family poet and playwright. The performance began with a scene acted in
the Frankfort dialect by Madame Mendelssohn and her sister, Madame
Schunck; then followed a charade in four parts--"Gewandhaus," the name
of the famous concert hall, was the word to be illustrated.

For the first syllable, "Ge," Joachim, then sixteen years old, appeared
in an eccentric wig, and played a wild Fantasia _à la_ Paganini on the
Ge-Saite, the G string. Then the stirring scene from "A
Midsummer-Night's Dream," when Pyramus and Thisbe make love through the
chink in the wall, stood for "Wand," the German for wall. The lion, I
need not say, roared well.

To illustrate the third syllable "Haus," my mother had written a little
domestic scene, to be acted by herself and her husband. When the curtain
rose, she was discovered knitting a blue stocking, and soliloquising on
the foibles of female authoresses; whereupon enter the cook. The cook
was my father, and his bearing on this his first appearance in the
part, his female attire, as well as his realistic get-up, so tickled
Mendelssohn's fancy, that he broke into a fit of Homeric laughter;
Homeric, with this reserve, that that historical outburst was not
produced in a wickerwork chair, and therefore cannot have been as
effective as Mendelssohn's. Under his weight the chair rocked to and
fro, and creaked till one thought it must break its bonds. But it held
out, and gradually found its balance; it was not till then that the cook
was allowed to proceed with her part.

Finally "Gewandhaus," the complete word, was represented by all the
juvenile members of the company; each of us had to blow or play some
instrument of a primitive character. Joachim led with a toy violin, and
I wielded the bâton, and did my best to take off the characteristic ways
of my illustrious godfather. Some of my imitative faculty must have
survived the dead-man period of my early days, for the wickerwork once
more shook with the sympathetic laughter of its occupant, and it reached
a climax when Joachim made some pointed remarks in imitation of the
master.

After the performance actors and public gathered round a festive board.
In the centre of the supper-table stood the birthday cake, around which
burned thirty-seven candles, one for each year, according to the good
old German fashion. My mother had written a few words descriptive of the
year each represented--from the cradle to the piano and the conductor's
desk--from his first attempt at composition, to "St. Paul," "Elijah,"
and the opera to come. In the centre stood the Light of Life, that,
alas! was so soon to fail. We little dreamt that it was his last
birthday we were celebrating.

The sounds of mirth, as the chords of harmony, were ere long to be
silenced. A few months later Mendelssohn's dearly beloved sister, Fanny
Hensel, suddenly died. It was a heavy blow from which he never quite
recovered, for the brother and sister were bound together by the closest
ties of affection, and the most striking artistic affinities. He spent
the summer in Switzerland, but returned enfeebled in health and
depressed in spirits. "His step is less elastic than before," says my
father, "but to see him at the piano, or to hear him talk about art and
artists, he is all life and fire."

The evening of the 8th of October was the last I was to spend at
Mendelssohn's house. He, my father, Rietz, and David had been playing
much classical music. In the course of an animated conversation which
followed, some knotty art question arose and led to a lively discussion.
Each of the authorities present was warmly defending his own opinion,
and there seemed little prospect of an immediate agreement, when
Mendelssohn, suddenly interrupting himself in the middle of a sentence,
turned on his heel and startled me with the unexpected question--

"What is the Aoristus primus of [Greek: typtô], Felix?" I was at that
time a schoolboy in my fifteenth year, and so, quickly recovering from
my surprise, I gave the correct answer.

"Good," said he, and off we went to supper, the knotty point being thus
promptly settled.

       *       *       *       *       *

I well remember the 9th of October of that year. From our windows we saw
Mendelssohn walking slowly and languidly through the garden towards our
house. As he came in, my mother inquired after his health, and he
answered, "_Grau in grau_" (Grey on grey). My father suggested a walk in
the Rosenthal, that beautiful park, in those days scarcely touched by
the hand of the landscape gardener. Mendelssohn acquiesced listlessly.
"Will you take me too?" asked my mother. "What do you say? shall we take
her?" broke in Mendelssohn in his old genial manner. Well, she was
taken, and so was I, or, at any rate, I went. The walk seemed to do him
good; he brightened up, and was soon engaged in lively conversation. My
mother said, "You have not told us enough about your last stay in
London," and that started him talking of our mutual friends there. Then
he gave us a graphic account of his visit to the Queen.

It will be remembered how, on a previous occasion, he had spent a
delightful hour in Buckingham Palace, and was charmed with the Queen's
singing of some of his songs, and struck with Prince Albert's musical
talents. How, between them, the three had set to work to pick up the
sheets of music which the wind had blown all over the room, before they
settled down to the organ and the piano, and how Mendelssohn carried out
the parrot in his cage, to the amazement of the royal servants. The
pleasant incident of his last visit, which he related to us as we walked
along the Rosenthal, was this. He had been once more making music with
the Queen, and had been genuinely delighted with her rendering of his
songs. As he was about to leave, she said--

"Now, Dr. Mendelssohn, you have given me so much pleasure; is there
nothing I can do to give you pleasure?" To be sure, he answered, that he
was more than amply rewarded by her Majesty's gracious reception, and by
what would be a lasting remembrance of the interest she had shown in his
music; but when she insisted, he said--

"Well, to speak the truth, I have a wish, and one that only your Majesty
can grant."

"It is granted," she interposed.

And then he told her that nothing could give him greater pleasure than
to see the nurseries and all the domestic arrangements connected with
the royal children. The most consummate courtier could not have
expressed a wish better calculated to please the Queen. She most
cordially responded, and herself conducted him through the nurseries.
Nor was the matter treated lightly; she had to show him the contents of
the wardrobes and give him particulars of the service, and for the time
being the two were not in the relative position of gracious sovereign
and obedient servant, but rather of an experienced materfamilias and an
enlightened paterfamilias, comparing notes, and giving one another
points on the management of their respective children.

Mendelssohn left us about one o'clock in the most cheerful mood. The
same afternoon he was taken ill in Madame Frege's house. He had gone
there to persuade her to sing in his "Elijah," which had as yet only
been performed in England, and was now to be heard in Leipsic; he also
wanted her advice and help in putting together a new book of his songs.
I pass over the anxiety of the next weeks, the partial recovery, to be
followed only by relapse and aggravated symptoms.

From the 1st of November we knew that the worst was to be feared. My
parents were not often away from the house of sickness. In the morning
of the fatal day, at four o'clock, I went to the Königstrasse to get the
latest news; I had to return hopeless through the dark and foggy night.
Later in the day I was again for some hours in the house, but was not
allowed to see the dying man. From two o'clock in the afternoon, the
hour when another paralytic stroke was dreaded, he gradually began to
sink. Cécile, his brother Paul, David, Schleinitz, and my father were
present, when at twenty-four minutes past nine he expired with a deep
sigh.

The next day Cécile wrote to my mother asking her to order the mourning
for the children; she would let her know when she could see her. Some
days elapsed, the funeral service had been held and the remains had been
transferred to Berlin, when she wrote again asking my mother to come and
to bring me. We went. Outwardly we found her calm and resigned, but one
could read in her countenance that she was mortally wounded. She talked
of him she had lost and showed us a deathbed drawing that his
brother-in-law Hensel had made. For a time his manuscripts remained
untouched; the door of his study she kept locked.

"Not a pin, not a paper," she wrote, "could I bring myself to move from
its place. That room must remain for a short time my sanctuary; those
things, that music, my secret treasure."

It was with feelings of deep emotion that I entered the room when,
shortly afterwards, she opened its door for me. I had asked and obtained
permission to make a water-colour drawing of that study, whilst all yet
stood as the master had left it. On the right was the little
old-fashioned piano on which he composed so many of his great works;
near the window the writing-desk he used to stand at. On the walls
water-colours by his own hand--Swiss landscapes and others. On the left
the busts of Goethe and Bach, placed on the bookcases which contained
his valuable musical library.

Whilst I was painting, Cécile came and went. Not a sigh, not a murmur
escaped her lips.

She died just four years after her husband.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV

MY FIRST COMMISSION


I well remember how I got my first commission and earned the first money
in the exercise of my profession. It came about in this way.

I was down by the Quais of old Paris, close to the Pont des Aveugles,
drawing the Parisian workman as he took his midday rest. The Quais had
not yet got as strait-laced as they are now, and the river flowed its
pleasant course without much police supervision. There was the loveliest
of buildings, the Louvre, but it had not made more than a start towards
the Tuileries, with which it was in but a few years to join stones.

I was often down there sketching, and I always found willing models
amongst the friendly natives in blouses. The Parisian has an
ever-varying way of asking you to take his likeness. "Tirez ma binette,"
"Fixez moi cette frimousse," or, "Relevez moi le plan de mon image," are
amongst those I recollect. "Draw my mug," we might say, although
translation does not go far to render that sort of colloquialism.--"Fix
my phiz," and "Just you give me the map of my image."

I never accepted coppers on the occasions when I presented my models
with a sketch, but such ready-money payment was often proffered. It was
not till a man had insisted on my accompanying him to his home with a
view to artistic business, that I was led to accept my first commission.
He lived near the Temple, quite a little distance from the Quai
Voltaire, and as we went along, my companion became very communicative.
He began about himself, then gave me a bird's-eye view of the family
history, and soon came to "Ma mère," a theme he stuck to as only a
Frenchman can. "She was," he said, "une maîtresse femme," and he would
just like to see the man "qui pourrait lui tirer une carotte" (who could
extract a carrot from her). This was not an allusion to the fruit and
vegetable shop she kept, but meant that she was not an easy one to get
over in money matters. I found the old lady as my friend had described
her. She was stout and determined, and she kept her money jingling in
the two or three capacious pockets of her apron. She could see I was an
artist; why, _she_ could recognise one within a radius of a league; and
if I would draw her the portraits of her two granddaughters for five
francs, I might set to work at once; they both had the eyes of _her_
family, the Roufflards,--not a trace of the Tusserand look--an advantage
I was not to overlook. The girls were about fourteen or fifteen, and I
thought I could make rather a telling picture of the two heads together
in medallion shape. But the old lady was after me at once. She didn't
believe in pinching and cheeseparing, and didn't want the thing rounded
off in any of those circular frames. "No," she said. "_Allez-y
franchement_; you just draw them as they are, hands and feet and all,
_comme qui dirait_: there they are, those two girls, _les fillettes à la
mère Tusserand_."

To this I answered that we hadn't bargained for all that, and I was
right from a strictly professional point of view, but I wouldn't have
lost the five francs for the world, and I daresay she guessed as much,
and stuck to her guns. She, as an old materfamilias, knew that people
were not born in bust shape; then why should they be thus represented?
_She_ always gave good measure, and if she didn't, her customers would
soon keep her up to the mark; so why shouldn't she have her money's
worth? I felt that I ought to insist on better terms, if only for the
dignity of my profession, but I was no match for the old lady, so I
started work on her conditions, only, to save appearances, bargaining
for a plentiful supply of _reineclaudes_ during the sittings.

A sort of staircase, that had just missed being a ladder, led up in a
straight line to the room that was to serve as a studio. A bed of
imposing dimensions took up the greater part of the room; the bedstead
of polished mahogany was an old-fashioned structure, that you could see
at once had been handed down from one generation of fruiterers to
another; similarly suggestive was a queer old roccoco looking-glass, and
a faded portrait of a tomcat sitting on a middle-aged spinster's lap.
"Who are you, young man?" these worthy relics seemed to say; "have _you_
got a pedigree?"

The latest offshoots from the genealogical tree of the
Roufflard-Tusserand family had to be enthroned on the bed. I could
otherwise not get sufficiently far away from them to overlook my group.
It was desired that their arms should be interlaced with a view to
emphasising their sisterly affection, and this gave rise to a new
difficulty as to the presentment of one of the hands, which, being in
perspective, did not show the full complement of fingers. When Madame
Tusserand came to inspect my work, she particularly insisted that no
part of the thumb should be concealed. She had noticed such
imperfections in other pictures, and had always looked upon them as
instances of the artful way in which painters sought to scamp their
work. But here I struck. I swore by the holy Raphael that I could and
would not alter it, and gave the old lady a lecture on the glorious
Madonnas, who, even with incomplete thumbs, had been the means of
regenerating the world. She was so pleased with the mention of the
Madonna, and more especially with that part of my argument which she did
not understand, that she gave in, and so perspective scored a victory.

The two girls, my models, were neat little types of the bourgeois class.
I did not think much of them or the type; in fact I thought the
generality of Parisian girls plain; but experienced friends told me I
knew nothing about it, and taught me that if I wanted to judge of a
woman (that unripe fruit, a girl, to be sure was not worth mentioning),
I must study not her face or her figure, but her general appearance and
one or two essential parts of her toilette. "What is the use of
features," they asked, "to a woman who can't dress, or who is _gantée_
and _chaussée_ as if she _revenait de l'autre monde_." Which other world
they meant, and how they wear their gloves and shoes there, they didn't
explain. "And why should you give undue importance," they wound up, "to
beauty where there is the _tournure_ to observe and the _chic_. No, _mon
cher_, if you want to form a correct estimate of a woman, study her
ankles and her _bottines_."

Whilst I was taking stock of my models, and arriving at the conclusion
that they were plain, pert, and precocious, they had evidently lost no
time in deciding that I was green, and that it would take a good deal of
teaching to give me the more attractive tinges of ripeness. They told me
all about the Bouzibon, a familiar name by which they designated their
favourite Bal de Barrière. They took it for granted I couldn't dance,
but I might come and learn there next Sunday evening. It was a most
respectable place, and nothing was ever lost or stolen there. La mère
Bouze was a widow; to be sure I had noticed that elegant place in the
Faubourg St. Denis, the fried-fish shop; well, that had originally been
started by the late Monsieur Bouze years ago.

In return I told them my old yarn about Prince Poniatowski being drowned
in the river Pleisse, just at the bottom of our garden in Leipsic; but I
let out the point too quickly, and once they knew the Prince was
drowned, they did not care for the rest. They behaved very well on the
whole, and, as far as I am aware, did not make ugly faces at me when I
was looking the other way. I am sure they did not like me though; their
fancy men were two _garçons coiffeurs_ in a barber's shop close by, and
so I hadn't a fair start.

That was my first experience as a portrait-painter. From that day to
this I have truly loved my profession, undeterred by the fact that the
course of true love does not always run smooth. At any rate that
five-franc piece which Madame Roufflard-Tusserand took from the depths
of her apron pocket and handed to me, gave me more satisfaction than
many a "Pay to F. Moscheles, Esq.," that has since followed.

I wonder whether my drawing still exists, and, if so, whether it is
going down as an heirloom from generation to generation with the
bedstead, the looking-glass, and the middle-aged tomcat lady.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V

CLAUDE RAOUL DUPONT


I well remember the first words of French that I mastered, and the
sensation I created when I, a very small boy, irrepressibly burst forth
with my declaration:

"O Madam, kay voos aite bell!"

This was addressed across the friendly supper table to Madame de R., who
with her husband, the well-known portrait-painter, was spending her
honeymoon at Boulogne.

To Boulogne we too had gone, as people went then when they wanted a
change of air, or as they go now to Africa or the antipodes.

On this occasion our party consisted of my parents, three sisters,
myself, and an English nurse, who, from first to last, was unutterably
shocked by what she called the outrageous proceedings of the foreigners,
and by the fearful language that parrot used, who always gathered a
little sympathetic crowd in front of the shell and wooden-spade shop.

My sisters had a French governess of the approved type.

"Maître Corbeau sur un arbre perché," she recited to me with
conventional emphasis and genuine affectation. On such occasions I
stood staring at her, surprised at the amount of mouth-twisting and
wriggling it took to talk French. Then I tried to do as much, and said:

"Mayter Korbow sure unn ahber per Shay."

"Perrrché," she interposed, and

"Pure Shay," I repeated.

"Mais non, mon petit chéri, perrrr--ché!" and so on, till we got to
"apeuprès ce langage," the "a pew pray" being, I recollect, a terrible
stumbling-block.

I was about eighteen when I met that handsome Madame de R. again in
Paris. She reminded me of my early appreciation of her beauty, and was
anxious to know whether I was still inclined to express my admiration as
warmly as I did formerly.

"To be sure," I said. "Yes. _Mais oui certainement, madame._" But, oh
dear! how little female French I must have understood in those days, and
how little male French I must have had at my command! for--I must
confess--I said no more.

The de R.'s became great people under the Empire: he and she--or perhaps
more correctly she and he--got into the inner Court circle, where she
soon distinguished herself as a leader of fashion, and he as a very
successful painter of life-size fashion-plates in oils. Both his works
and her personal charms were graciously smiled upon by the imperial
master himself.

Apropos of my French, I may say that I had every opportunity of
improving it. I soon entered the Atelier Gleyre, that studio we have
heard about in reference to Du Maurier, Whistler, Poynter, and others,
who there learnt to draw their first bonshommes, and to spoil their
first canvases.

I had made a sort of mental vow to speak nought but the language of the
country for the first year of my stay in Paris. In the beginning I found
it rather tough work, but a French studio is a good school. I plunged in
head foremost, and soon got on swimmingly. From the first I was
attracted by the brilliancy of Parisian slang, and by the terseness of
French argot (that is, the thieves' language). As for the genuine
article, real French, as spoken by real Frenchwomen in real salons on a
"_Madame reçoit_" day--nothing could exceed my admiration for it. But
the Quartier Latin, with its studios and garrets, its _crêmeries_ and
little restaurants, all bedecked with clever works from the brushes of
the _habitués_, was the high school in which I graduated and which in
due time turned me out a fair specimen of the classical _Rapin_--the art
student as Paris alone produces him. In a word, I soon felt quite at
home in that delightful haven of unrest we call Bohemia.

And the friends of those days! I made many and lost few. There is one
who stands out prominently from amongst the rest, and he is connected in
my mind with a thousand and one incidents of my Paris life. His name was
Claude; Claude Raoul Dupont.

At our first meeting I felt that I should like to make friends with him.
He was what the Italians call _sympatico_--not quite the same thing as
sympathetic; just the sort of man whom little girls would unhesitatingly
request to ring the bell they couldn't reach, or boys would call to
their assistance with a "Please, sir, lend us your stick to get down
that cap from up there," or "to fetch out that ball from inside them
railings;" the sort of man with whom you or I would at once have got
into conversation, if we had met him in a railway carriage.

My first acquaintance with him was in that Atelier Gleyre. We were just
fellow-students at the beginning, then chums, _bons camarades_, soon
friends, and finally we got linked together by the most lasting of ties,
that of brotherly love. So it comes that the story of his life is most
vividly impressed on my mind. It is uneventful, perhaps, and differs
little from any other story that pictures the artist's life, with its
hopes and aspirations, its sprinkling of love-making and its glorious
consummation of love-finding, but I must attempt to give an outline of
it, if but in memory of my friend.

To begin at the beginning, let me sketch our days of good comradeship,
and put in a wash of background here and there, and a few touches of
local colour in illustration of the life we led.

You could tell at a glance that Claude was a "Rapin," but that was not
surprising, for in those days it had not yet become the aim and end of
the young artist to conceal his profession and to walk through life
incognito, with a well-groomed chimney-pot implanted on the top of his
head. So you must fancy Claude with a soft felt hat of a species even
now not quite extinct, although, as we all know, superseded by the
boiled apple-pudding-shaped dome, ornamented with a gutter, which we
have universally adopted, and which we call a pot hat, a bowler, a
billycock hat, or as the coachman or groom says, a bridle.

It was quite appropriate that Claude should wear a wide-awake, as being
in keeping with an expression that showed him always on the _qui vive_.
He was tall, rather too much so for the breadth of his shoulders, but he
moved with great freedom and ease, and as he was mostly on the move, he
also mostly showed to advantage.

In the Atelier Gleyre he was the leading spirit. That studio was
situated in the Rue de l'Ouest, flanking the Luxembourg Gardens. It was
a large, high room with the regulation studio window, and was furnished
with one model table on wheels, one iron spitfire of a stove, and a lot
of three-legged easels and four-legged stools, not to forget a large
screen behind which the models undressed; all things bearing traces of
the perilous lives they led, and showing picturesque seams and scars
where they were begrimed with the scrapings from perennial palettes. The
professor very liberally gave his instruction gratis. For the working
expenses of the Atelier the students clubbed together, each contributing
ten francs per month to the "masse." At the time I entered, Claude was
"Massier," that is, a sort of secretary, treasurer, and boss combined.
He occupied that exalted position with much distinction, for he could be
alternately serious and absurd, weighty and trivial. Common sense on the
one hand; an uncommon amount of nonsense on the other. In fact his
character was a curious compound of elements seemingly opposed, but
working in harmony together. He was _facile princeps_ as a _blagueur_,
that is, he could chaff unmercifully, talk tall, make a fool imagine
himself wise, and a wise man feel foolish. It takes a double-distilled
Frenchman to make a full-blown _blagueur_, and such a man was Dupont.

We were a lively set, and the jokes that were bandied about, coupled
with the most unparliamentary, not to say vituperative language, at
first startled me. But the Rapin's bark is worse than his bite. "Il est
défendu de chahuter la religion et la famille" was an unwritten law,
that excluded those two delicate topics, the family and religion, from
the field of word-battle. Another law bade you keep your temper. We
might have hurled the most obnoxious of epithets at one another, but
when the available catalogue of abuse was exhausted, we would wind up
with some good-humoured trump card, like "C'est égal, je suis plus bête
que toi," which, freely translated, says, "Never mind, I am the bigger
fool of the two."

One of the first things that struck me in the atelier was a large felt
hat forming a sort of centre on the ceiling. That was Gobelot's hat. It
was there just because some of the boys had taken a dislike to it; in
fact it was a priggish hat, and as Gobelot had a twitchy sort of a face
that would work well under feelings of surprise and resentment, they
thought they would like to watch him, from the first moment when he
would miss his hat, to the last when he would discover its whereabouts.

It had got fixed on the ceiling with some difficulty, whilst its owner
had fallen asleep by the stove. The model table was placed in the centre
of the room, and the ladder held upright upon it by half-a-dozen sturdy
arms; a light-weight clambered to the top and did the nailing. The
result proved pre-eminently satisfactory to all except Gobelot, and even
he, I think, after the lapse of a few months, got to be rather proud of
the excelsiority accorded to his headgear.

This was by no means the first experience he had had of studio life. On
his entrance into the Atelier Gleyre, he had set himself to draw the
figure of Sinel, one of the leading models of the day, and had betrayed
more self-confidence than was compatible with his position as a
_nouveau_. He had been working for a couple of days, when Monsieur
Gleyre came to visit his students. The bear-garden was suddenly
transformed into a grave academy. Respectful silence and order
prevailed, as the master passed from easel to easel, criticising here
and encouraging there, and generally enunciating wise artistic saws for
the benefit of the students. When Gobelot's turn came, he paused a while
before he expressed an opinion on his work. At last he said kindly but
firmly: "Young man, you have come to study with me, and it is my duty to
advise you honestly and straight-forwardly. Believe me, devote all your
attention to the human foot; learn to draw that correctly,--and then
perhaps you may be successful as a bootmaker." Therewith he passed on to
the neighbour. Shortly afterwards the real Monsieur Gleyre came in, for
the whole thing was a plant, and Gobelot was officially introduced as
the _nouveau_ by the sham professor.

It is not a sinecure to be the _nouveau_. One is the butt of endless
jokes, and has to take them meekly; one is at everybody's beck and call,
to pick up a brush, or to run for a ha'porth of bread or a penn'orth of
fried potatoes. When I was the new boy, I knew resistance was useless,
so I served my time cheerfully, swallowing snakes, as the French call
it, with apparent relish.

But one day I was caught napping. I had joined in the general
conversation, and had so far forgotten myself as to make a joke, and,
what was worse, they said, not a bad one. This was adding insult to
injury; a storm of indignation broke forth, and the cry of "À l'échelle"
("To the ladder") was raised. I should then and there have suffered the
penalty of my rashness, had not Dupont interposed. He mounted the
rostrum, _i.e._ the model table, and made an eloquent appeal on my
behalf. I was an Englishman, he pleaded, and as such I had been reared
on raw beef and bran puddings; he would himself now see that I was kept
on lighter food (I suppose he meant frogs). Yes, I had presumed to
trespass on the domain of "esprit," the exclusive property of Frenchmen
in general, and of the duffers now before him in particular--he would
not offend them by calling them gentlemen. My joke, he admitted, was a
good one, but then, what could you expect from a benighted foreigner,
who did not know the value of a bad one. And so on. However feeble his
defence may appear to us as we read it in cold blood, it had the
desired effect, and I was saved from my impending fate. But I was not to
get off for long. Only a couple of days afterwards, an incident led to
my punishment. It was luncheon time and I was studying the greasy paper
that my potatoes had been wrapped up in, probably a leaf from some old
register, so many tons of which are issued daily by bureaucratic Paris.
I had got to my second course, roast chestnuts done to a T, when I had a
sort of secret forewarning that a certain long stick with a hook, one of
the studio properties, was stealthily approaching towards the stool I
was sitting on. A sudden jerk, and the stool was pulled from beneath me;
but being fully prepared, I failed to collapse, and remained as if
seated, continuing my meal as if nothing had occurred. Such independence
could not be tolerated. Stop, the well-known caricaturist, now formally
moved that I be "mis à l'échelle," and the resolution was unanimously
carried. So the ladder was laid on the floor, and I was bound to it
hands and feet; then it and I were hoisted up and placed against the
wall. Next Stop proceeded to bare my breast, and to paint thereon a
highly coloured picture representing several pigs and their doings. In
the meanwhile the poker was being made red-hot in the stove. The
occasion must be marked by a scar, I was given to understand, and I can
assure those who have never gone through a similar experience, that a
touch from a red-hot poker is very painful, even if the red is only
vermilion and the heat imaginary. I was informed that I should have to
preserve the pig picture for a fortnight, after which time I should be
called up for inspection.

When a _nouveau_ is entered at an atelier, he is expected to pay "la
bienvenue," his welcome. Gobelot had preceded me as the new boy, and as
we had both been pretty liberal, a sum of about fifty francs was in
readiness to be used for some sociable purpose. After some deliberation
it was decided to invest our capital in donkeys, to be hired in the Bois
de Boulogne. So one fine afternoon we found ourselves in full force,
selecting our mounts at Père Delaborde's well-known stables. His donkeys
were always the best fed and best kept, and to us, who had never been to
the East, and therefore did not know what a donkey was really like, they
seemed quite decent and cheerful specimens of their kind. Here and
there, to be sure, there was one who had not become resigned to his
fate, and who would stiffen his neck with an emphasis that showed that
he would have used strong language, had he been endowed with the power
of speech. But on the whole Monsieur Delaborde's donkeys were quite
docile and manageable, and accustomed to be ruled by the little shouting
savages known as donkey-boys.

There were two horses in the stables, and it was decided that Gobelot
and I should mount them and take command of the donkey brigade. The
responsibility of leadership soon, however, devolved on me alone, for
Gobelot's horse had, I suppose through long-standing habits of
companionship, taken to the ways of its mates; so it kept step with
them, and stretched its ears full length, and took all things
philosophically. My steed was made of very different metal. He started
off at a lively pace, giving me an opportunity of showing off my
horsemanship, acquired at the riding-school in Leipsic. I felt
pleasantly aware of my superiority over my donkey-mounted friends,
especially over Dupont, whose long legs were dangling very near the
ground, he having left his stirrups, or they him, and over Gobelot, who
was ineffectually trying to break into a canter.

Very suddenly and unexpectedly my horse stopped as if it had divined
that I thought it time to inspect my followers. It was my intention to
form them into column, and then to execute one or two strategical
movements that seemed well adapted to the occasion. As a first step
towards this, I wanted to wheel round and face my men, but my steed was
evidently in a meditative mood and would not be disturbed. I applied my
heels to its flanks, and pulled its head round, till its eye met mine,
but its body remained stationary. When it had thought out whatever it
may have had on its mind, it started off again as suddenly as it had
stopped, before I had had an opportunity of commencing operations. This
capricious starting and stopping, over which I had no control, was, I
need not say, a source of annoyance to me, and of hilarity to my
friends. It was to be more than this presently.

I had got pretty far ahead of the others, when my mount came to one of
its dead stops. I contented myself with hoping it would soon have done
staring vacantly. Looking round, I noticed some commotion in the distant
donkey group, and an opening in its ranks to let a carriage pass. As it
approached, it proved to be a well-appointed phaeton, and I recognised
Louis Napoleon, who was driving himself, accompanied by a gentleman and
by two servants in green and gold livery. I made every effort to get out
of the way, but in vain. The prince took in the situation at a glance
and considerately deviated from his course, seeing that I could not keep
it clear for him. A smile flitted across his face and enlivened his
rigidly waxed moustache, as he turned to his companion and made some
remark. I did not catch it, but my horse probably did, and must have
taken it as encouraging, for it started off in an uncontrollable fit of
loyalty, and whether I liked it or not, I had to ride by the side of the
phaeton, acting, for the time being, as equerry to the future emperor.
He took it kindly; the two green and gold ones were amazed and
indignant, but too well trained to lynch me, and so I galloped on till
once more my quadruped stopped and again became absorbed in thought.

When my companions came up, they gave expression to their unbounded
delight at my discomfiture, and generally treated me, their appointed
leader, with every mark of disrespect. This time the horse must have
mistaken their vociferous hooting for a signal to return home, for it
started off in that direction, and took me back without once indulging
in the usual hiatus.

I dismounted, and whilst, on the one hand, I was glad to be now able to
regulate my own movements, on the other I was smarting under the
recollection of my ignominious failure, and the jeering and hooting
still rang in my ears.

A couple of _sergents de ville_ were on duty close by, a circumstance
which suggested to me the opportunity of getting even with my
insubordinate men.

"Well, Messieurs," I said to the policemen, "I think there might be a
few more of you along the principal avenues. It is positively
disgraceful. I don't mind a bit of a joke myself, but in my country we
don't play practical jokes on royalty, as that young chap with the brown
felt hat did on your Prince President."

"What he did?"

"Why, ride alongside the prince's carriage, giving himself airs and
posing for _son Altesse's_ aide-de-camp. And, following him as fast as
they could get along, a band of asses on donkeys, braying like
_imbéciles_. Well, _bon jour_, Messieurs; after all, it's no business of
mine. I only thought you might care to know."

On the arrival of the band, I learnt afterwards, they were confronted by
four _sergents de ville_, the two original ones having been reinforced.
Gobelot, the man with the brown felt hat, was asked for his passport,
and, not being able to produce it, was looked upon with suspicion and
closely cross-questioned. Dupont rather entered into my joke and let
things go wrong, till it was high time to set them right. Then I was
denounced, and it was not without some difficulty made clear to the
authorities that the informer was the real culprit. So Gobelot the
innocent was only warned to be more careful another time, and my name
is probably inscribed on some black list at the _Préfecture_.

       *       *       *       *       *

Claude was a most indefatigable worker; as an artist ever severe and
uncompromising, studying on the lines of Ingres and Flandrin, loving a
bird, a stone, a woman for the sake of the outline they imprinted on his
mind, and ever seeking an ideal contour, whether he held the pencil or
the brush. His enthusiasm was quite catching; so under his influence I
soon began to love drawing for its own sake, and we spent many an
evening together studying Dante's stern features from the cast or
working from the living model.

He had inherited his classical predilections from his father, who
himself had started life as an artist, but had found that large
historical landscapes _à la_ Poussin were not easily convertible into
bread and butter, and had therefore wisely abandoned art as a
profession, and had embraced the administrative career, in which he rose
and prospered. His leisure hours he still spent at the easel, but his
canvases were not as large as formerly; in his productions he always
gave me the impression that he could use more emerald and olive greens,
to the exclusion of other colours, on a given space, than any man I had
ever known.

He was quite touching in his love for Claude.

"What I have dreamed of and struggled for in vain," he would say, "that
boy is going to realise. He is born with _du style_. Believe me, my
child, outside _le style_ there is no art. From the time of Raphael
down to the present day, nothing is worth recording, nothing remains or
will remain, that is not _de l'école_. _La grande école_, my child, _le
style, la ligne, voilà le salut_, believe me."

I winced, for I loved, above all the colourists, the Spaniards, the
Dutch; but he was so sincere, so convincing, that for the time being I
felt as if I could have sold my birthright for a line of beauty.

"He is quite right," Claude would afterwards say to me, "but he puts his
finger in his eye, if he thinks he can flatten your bump of colour.
Every man is born with his own bumps, and they are bound to grow with
him just as his hair does."

And with that we would plunge headlong into the famous discussion _sur
la forme et la couleur_, each doing battle for his god with the energy
of youthful fanaticism, and feeling all the while that we would have
given anything to be able to exchange bumps with one another. How much
further his bump would lead him, I thought, and how admirably he was
organised to use it in the service of high art! And he, on the other
hand, would say--

"What am I, my dear fellow, as compared to you, born in the purple of
art as you are? You hold the trump cards, and will," &c. &c.

Then there was an uncle of Claude's, _l'oncle Auguste_, whose views
clashed fearfully with the artistic aspirations of my friend and of his
father. He was a tanner, at the head of a large establishment which he
had founded--a self-made man, with a lot of cleverly-grabbed money. In
his social intercourse he had so carefully surrounded himself with
inferior intellects, that he could not but shine as a bright light
amongst them--a circumstance which led him to form a most exaggerated
estimate of his own wisdom and mental powers.

"My dear Jean," he would say to his brother, "I should really have
thought your own experiences with those blessed paints would have made a
wiser man of you. Surely one victim to the mania in the family should
have been enough, without dragging that poor boy into it; a splendid
fellow, sane and sound, if it weren't for the rubbish you put into his
head. He was cut out for the business; never happier than when he was
pottering about at the works. Why, when he was a mere child, he very
nearly got drowned in the tan vat." And turning to Claude: "What have
you to say to it, you young rascal? Ah well, I know you are hopelessly
lost, since you got out of those plaster casts and those bones and
muscles into that--What do you call that place, where able-bodied young
men, strong and fit for work, sit all day drawing mannikins! _Une vraie
fabrique de bonshommes! En voilà un métier!_"

The same evening l'oncle Auguste was holding forth to some friends he
had invited to sit at his feet and at his whist-table--

"Now mark my words, messieurs; we are going to make an artist of that
nephew of mine, and one who will surprise the world. He has been
received first on a list of I don't know how many hundreds of students
at the Life Class of the École des Beaux Arts. _Oui, messieurs_, art is
an heirloom in our fami

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