Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

TA USIG 43
urged my mother's immediate return there. On the
same evening a thaw set in, and our journey was thus
rendered possible. My air-built castles melted with
the snow, for there was important business to be
attended to. It was impossible for my mother to
remain. My artistic nature made only one struggle,
and then succumbed to the inevitable. I just asked
my mother the question whether she would be
satisfied to leave me in Berlin until summer, and
when I recognised that she could not reconcile herself
to the idea, I saw there was no use in thinking any
more on the subject. Before we left Berlin she
enclosed her visiting-card to Tausig, and in a few
courteous lines thanked him for his kindness, and
begged him to come and see us if he ever found his
way to England.
We were, however, never to meet him, never to
hear him again ; for in the following year he was
carried off by a fever. He had been the favourite,
and, according to some, the most gifted pupil Liszt
had ever had. In referring to him a few years back,
the Meister is said to have pronounced the dictum
that since his death there had been but one who
could be compared to him. That one was Eugene
d'Albert, to whom even then, and before his great
powers were quite matured, Liszt alluded as 'the
young,' or rather, ' our young lion.'