He looked at me, and thought he saw a curious expression in my face,--although I was quite unaware of such a thing,--and continued, "You don't like it!" "Oh, I do," I protested, "and esteem the dedication as a great honor." "I see you don't," he said. "Well," I replied, "I already have one 'Yankee Doodle' from Rubinstein, and was thinking that the coincidence of your dedicating me another was very curious, that is all. Let me explain to you that 'Yankee Doodle' does not stand in the same relation to the United States as 'God Save the Queen' to England, 'Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser' to Austria, or the 'Marseillaise' to France. 'Yankee Doodle' was written by an Englishman in derision of us." I am afraid that my remarks discouraged him, for he never finished the composition. He played it to me as far as he had progressed with it, and it is certainly the best treatment of the theme I have ever heard. He had given it respectability, and, indeed, he told me that he really liked the tune. MEETINGS WITH VON BUeLOW Von Bulow, who had been a pupil of Liszt a year or two before my time, would occasionally return to Weimar from his concert tours, and during these visits I became well acquainted with him. In certain ways he was a wonderful man. He had an extraordinary memory and remarkable technic. He was invariably accurate and precise in his careful observance of rhythm and meter by means of proper accentuation, and the clear phrasing resulting therefrom made up a good deal for the absence of other desirable features, for his playing was far from being impassioned or temperamental. His Chopin-playing always impressed me as dry, and his Beethoven interpretations lacked warmth and fervency. I remember he once said to me: "Rubinstein can make any quantity of errors during his performance, and nobody is disturbed by it; but if I make a single mistake it will be noticed immediately by every one in the audience, and the effect will be spoiled." Personally, Von Bulow and I got along very well together. He always made kind inquiry for me when he met common friends in Europe, and he once presented me with an autograph of Brahms which he valued highly. The following letter he wrote me shortly after his arrival in this country, in response to an invitation to make me a few days' visit in Orange, New Jersey, where I was then residing. BOSTON, October 21, 1875. MY DEAR COLLEAGUE: I have just now received your kind note, and although I have not a single moment of leisure, I want to thank you and to tell you how happy I should be to meet you again after nearly a quarter of a century out of sight. Alas! it is quite impossible for me to make you a visit before my arrival in New York. I must work very hard in spite of a bad health and a not at all Rubinstein-like constitution.