Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

26o MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
in the charge of Henselt's housekeeper—I was com-
pelled with much reluctance to give up the idea of
seeing again (at least in Eussia) the revered teacher,
the loved and valued friend.
As all, however, that touches either more or less
on the person and character of such a remarkable
man must interest lovers of music, I shall not take
leave of my reader without mentioning several other
little facts and incidents which may serve to give a
very fair idea of what he was, all round. First of all,
in speaking of him as a teacher, I will not disguise
the fact (indeed, I have already said as much), that
it was not always an easy task to study with him. I
am by no means prepared to say that if I had not
gone to him with so entire a conviction of his power
to help me—if I had not, as Beatrice tells Dante to
do, ' flung away from myself,' and let myself be freed
from every shred and particle of pretension—I could
not have borne with him, before I had come fully to
understand what his sudden bursts of anger at what
seemed trifles really meant. I wished for the utmost
rigour of the school, and had told him so ; but seeing
me rather panic-stricken on the first ^occasion that he
spoke very bluntly, and with a very loud voice, he
said, in wishing me good-bye at the close of that
. lesson, ' You know it is not to have an agreeable
hour with me that you come here ; yet if you cannot
bear my point-blank way of fault-finding, I will draw
in, and not let fly as I did just now.' But I wanted