Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

HENSELT 287
tion in many quarters. Taking the most favourable
view, it could only be said that if I had not been
devoted to pianoforte-playing I might possibly have
done something more remarkable in composition.
Believe me, this is the correct opinion to form about
me. Each individual artist is the best judge of him-
self when vanity does not darken his understanding.
Constant indisposition has this year obliged me to
defer the pleasure of at once making your acquaint-
ance, and of thanking you for your kind intentions
with regard to me. For this, however, I hope, with
God's help, to indemnify myself in the season of
1884. Accept the assurance of profound respect
from
' Your obedient servant,
'A. D. Hbnsblt.
' P.S.—Kindly excuse my writing—writing is a great
difficulty to me.'*
Meanwhile, though in the first instance without
my knowledge, I had in Prau von Henselt won a
secret ally to my plan. She became interested as
well for my work in general as for this particular
design, and, without her husband's knowledge, sent
me, through a friend of his, a reply to the questions
I had in vain put to him. Her communications,
* Henselt's writing was all the more illegible from his habit
of joining one word to another. It is very characteristic, and
rather reminds one of Beethoven's.