Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

22ii
MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
surprise you with the observation, ' It is evident you
have been of late giving your fingers but little nourish-
ment.'
When the end of September came, and Henselt
returned to St. Petersburg, I paid a visit to Great
Britain, and had the gratification of convincing all
those on whose opinion I set any value that in going
to Henselt I had followed a true instinct, and that in
the few months I had worked under his guidance I
had got a very solid footing in the domain of true art.
But I had not yet played any of the great concert
concertos with him ; and it was with the feeling that,
even if I did not intend to play these in public myself,
yet that it was imperative I should study them in order
to be able to direct others, that I returned to St. Peters-
burg in the first week of the next January. On this
my second visit I was received with great cordiality by
various disciples of the Henselt school, with whom
I had grown intimate during my former stay there.
I now looked upon Henselt as a sort of father, and
being obliged to take temporary rooms while waiting
to get something more suitable, I did not at once hire
a piano, but went to practise at the Meister's house
twice a day, in the morning from about twelve to two,
and again between half-past five and eight or nine
o'clock—for he was always out at these hours. On
the third of these evenings, however, he happened to
come into his rooms without my being aware of it,
and after listening for a little to my practice, he