What the result of his appeal to my inspiration may have been, I do
not remember, but I find this is what he writes on the subject--

"CARISSIMO,--In vain have I taxed Rag's inventive powers to alter the
last stanza; we must e'en stick to 'Ce baiser-la.' The lines I have
underlined mean that I don't quite approve the part of the music
that comes just there, as in the musical phrase you have set to it I
fancy there is a want of tenderness. All the rest is stunning; the
more I hums it the more I likes it, but I can't exactly come your
accompaniment."

[Illustration: Moscheles, or Mephistopheles? which]

No wonder, for my accompaniments were usually rather indefinite
quantities, subject to the mood of the moment. "Moscheles or
Mephistopheles, which?" he asks, as he depicts me at the piano,
perhaps evolving some such accompaniment from the depths of "untrained
inner consciousness." "Eureka" he might have put under that other
sketch, where his own hands have at last found some long-sought
harmony or chord on the piano. Another drawing there is of a somewhat
later period which he calls "Inspiration papillotique." Again I am at
the piano, my eyes raised to the "She" in papillottes, who floats as a
vision in the clouds, issuing from my ever-puffing cigar, whilst at my
feet is stretched the meditative form of my friend, and under them is
crushed some work of our immortal colleague Beethoven.

[Illustration: "INSPIRATION PAPILLOTIQUE."]

[Illustration: DU MAURIER IMPROVISING.]