Liszt hasn't the nervous irritability common to artists, but on the contrary his disposition is the most exquisite and tranquil in the world. We have been there incessantly and I've never seen him ruffled except two or three times, and then he was tired and not himself, and it was a most transient thing. When I think what a little savage Tausig often was, and how cuttingly sarcastic Kullak could be at times, I am astonished that Liszt so rarely lost his temper. He has the power of turning the best side of every one outward, also the most marvelous and instant appreciation of what that side is. If there is anything in you, you may be sure that Liszt will know it. On Monday I had a most delightful tete-a-tete with Liszt, quite by chance. I had occasion to call upon him for something, and strange to say, he was alone, sitting by his table writing. Generally all sorts of people are up there. He insisted upon my staying for a while, and we had the most amusing and entertaining conversation imaginable. It was the first time I ever heard Liszt really talk, for he contents himself mostly with making little jests. He is full of esprit. Another evening I was there about twilight and Liszt sat at the piano looking through a new oratorio which had just come out in Paris, upon "Christus." He asked me to turn for him, and evidently was not interested, for he would skip whole pages and begin again, here and there. There was only a single lamp, and that a rather dim one, so that the room was all in shadow, and Liszt wore his Merlin-like aspect. I asked him to tell me how he produced a certain effect he makes in his arrangement of the ballad in Wagner's "Flying Dutchman." He looked very "fin" as the French say, but did not reply. He never gives a direct answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, "you won't tell." He smiled and then immediately played the passage. It was a long arpeggio, and the effect he made was, as I had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the pedal down throughout, and played the beginning of the passage in a grand sort of manner, and then all the rest of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that the continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the notes seemed to be just strewn in, as if you broke a wreath of flowers and scattered them according to your fancy. It is a most striking and beautiful effect, and I told him I didn't see how he ever thought of it. "Oh, I've invented a great many things," said he, indifferently--"this, for instance"--and he began playing a double roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the piano. It was very grand and made the room reverberate. "Magnificent," said I. "Did you ever hear me do a storm?" said he. "No."