DEAR DR. MASON: When you wrote your "Memories of a Musical Life," July-October, 1900, of Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, you probably did not have any presentiment that there is in a distant country, far from you, somebody who only by one day younger than yourself (born January 25, 1829) will be reading with the greatest interest your excellent and truthful description of different musical celebrities and authorities. Being myself for many years a pupil of Gerke and of Henselt in St. Petersburg, I had been with many of the eminent men you name personally acquainted; with Moscheles and Rubinstein I had more often and more intimate relations, and my delight was naturally great in reading your true and graphic account of some of my former musical friends. It is indeed with a feeling of admiration and gratitude that I am now addressing these lines to its author. Your interesting description of your stay at Weimar in 1853 gave me special pleasure, as in that same year, in May, June, and July, I had also been with Liszt in Weimar, and I remember you, dear Dr. Mason, perfectly, as well as Klindworth, Pruckner, the two Wieniawskis, Winterberger, Raff, and others; they are all living in my memory. That period of my youth is full of the most beautiful and noble impressions. Your account of that incomparable meister we both, I dare say, equally admire, awakened in me Liszt's greatness as artist, and still more, if I may say so, the greatness of his nature and character, so richly endowed with so many generous and noble instincts; and I recall with delight to my mind our pleasant walks in the Schlossgarten, where we visited Klindworth in his modest apartments; the supper at the Hotel zum Erbprinzen, where Liszt wished to get acquainted with the card-game "preference," which I had to show him; our visits to the Schloss, in the ground floor of which we listened to Liszt's divine playing and afterward got invited to dine up-stairs with the Princess Wittgenstein and her charming daughter. I believe you had already left Weimar when Professor Adolf Marx came from Berlin to visit Liszt and brought with him the score of his new oratorio. Marx wished to say a few words about its performance to Liszt before the first rehearsal, but was much disappointed, as he told me, not to find an appropriate moment to speak with the meister, whose attention was constantly taken up by his pupils. On the day of the rehearsal, Marx, who was sitting next to me, again expressed his regret at not having found an opportunity to talk the matter over with Liszt. Shortly after the rehearsal had commenced I felt several times Marx's elbows, which, giving way to his enthusiasm, came in close and sensible contact with mine. At last he exclaimed: "Liszt