proceeds of a single concert to some object of charity, but even gave
money, and whole tours. Besides this concert at Lyons, and various
others, one might mention the concert given for the flood sufferers at
Pesth, and for the poor of his native town, and the concert tour by
which he made Beethoven's monument possible at Bonn. Add to this the
other sums he scattered to poor artists like Wagner from his meagre
purse, and you will see one reason why women, who are more susceptible
and perceptive of such qualities of character, were almost as helpless
to resist Liszt's personality as he theirs. Even when he was "la petit
Litz," he was found holding a street-cleaner's broom while he went to
change a gold piece. And in his later years, his servant always filled
two of his pockets with coin, one with copper, and one with silver; and
the man used to say that when his master came home at night, the copper
mine was usually untouched, but the silver deposit exhausted.

It was in Lyons that the comtesse began her literary career, by a
French translation of Schubert's "Erl-König." She later obtained a
considerable fame, as I have said, under the name of Daniel Stern. In
the fall of 1837 Liszt and the comtesse went to Italy, where,
especially at Bellaggio, they appear to have been genuinely happy. He
seems to be describing himself when he writes:

"Yes, my friend, when the ideal form of a woman floats before your
dreaming soul, a woman whose heaven-born charms bear no allurement for
the senses, but only wing the soul to devotion, and if you saw at her
side a youth of sincere and faithful heart, weave these forms into a
moving story of love, and give it the title, 'On the Shores of the Lake
of Como.'"

To us, who think of Liszt always by his last pictures, presenting him