above my two operatic airs, that all shyness at having to stand beside him would have been spared me, as the gulf between our two productions was impassable.  But in his choice of the Ruy Blas Overture he appears to have been prompted by a desire to place himself on this occasion so close to the operatic style that its effectiveness might be reflected upon his own work.  The overture was evidently calculated for a Parisian audience, and the astonishment Mendelssohn caused by appearing in such a connection was shown by Robert Schumann in his own ungainly fashion at its close.  Approaching the musician in the orchestra, he blandly, and with a genial smile, expressed his admiration of the ’brilliant orchestral piece’ just played..

But in the interests of veracity let me not forget that neither he nor I scored the real success of that evening.  We were both wholly eclipsed by the tremendous effect produced by the grey-haired Sophie Schroder in a recitation of Burger’s Lenore.  While the daughter had been taunted in the newspapers with unfairly employing all sorts of musical attractions to cozen a benefit concert out of the music lovers of Leipzig for a mother who never had anything to do with that art, we, who were there as her musical aiders and abettors, had to stand like so many idle conjurers, while this aged and almost toothless dame declaimed Burger’s poem with truly terrifying beauty and grandeur.  This episode, like so much else that I saw during these few days, gave me abundant food for thought and meditation.

A second excursion, also undertaken with Devrient, took me in the December of that year to Berlin, where the singer had been invited to appear at a grand state concert.  I for my part wanted an interview with Director Kustner about the Fliegender Hollander.  Although I arrived at no definite result regarding my own personal business, this short visit to Berlin was memorable for my meeting with Franz Liszt, which afterwards proved of great importance.  It took place under singular circumstances, which placed both him and me in a situation of peculiar embarrassment, brought about in the most wanton fashion by Devrient’s exasperating caprice.

I had already told my patroness the story of my earlier meeting with Liszt.  During that fateful second winter of my stay in Paris, when I had at last been driven to be grateful for Schlesinger’s hack-work, I one day received word from Laube, who always bore me in mind, that F. Liszt was coming to Paris.  He had mentioned and recommended me to him when he was in Germany, and advised me to lose no time in looking him up, as he was ‘generous,’ and would certainly find means of helping me.  As soon as I heard that he had really arrived, I presented myself at the hotel to see him.  It was early in the morning.  On my entrance I found several strange gentlemen waiting in the drawing-room, where, after some time, we were joined by Liszt himself, pleasant and affable, and wearing his indoor coat.  The