Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

LISZT 95
had reserved its best for the home, in which he had
left a memory so sweet that his widow would not
leave the spot where his body was laid to rest—that
^ should be, to all appearance, forgotten and over-
looked, while all the young generation were at the
feet of a man who had been blameworthy in his life
as an individual—sensational and ' emancipated ' in
both life and art ! The grave in which Hummel's
faithful widow was laid beside him, after a widowhood
of nearly half a century, was kept by the two Fraulein
von Hummel like a lovely flower-garden, and few days
went by without one or other of the sisters, or else
their old family servant, going to the cemetery with a
watering-pot and all the implements of gardening.
Just as I had seemed to have got everything I
could wish for in Weimar, all became clouded by the
return of a physical trouble from which I had now
been free for years. My breathing became so oppressed,
even when not making any exertion, that my
kind hostesses were much concerned about me, and
believed that I was suffering from a bad form of
asthma. I knew better, however, but in order to
reassure them I consulted the best doctor in Weimar,
and was told by him that if I did not avoid all excite-
ment for the time being I should risk bringing on
disease of the heart. To play at the Liszt reunions
was thus for the present quite out of the question
and I felt it my duty to send a letter to Liszt, and tell
him that I could take no active part in the perform-
;