I have an American friend who calls at the office at 2 P.M. every day now, to tell me in detail all the war news that I have just finished reading in the papers. It requires an hour, but he does it up thoroughly, and this, of all things, has made me wish the war would hurry to a close. But are not _Consuls_ paid to _listen_ to their countrymen sometimes? While at home last winter, I arranged to continue writing articles for some of the magazines, and the labor makes pleasant employment for leisure hours. Many reports for the Government, too, on all conceivable subjects, continue to be asked for and are printed as fast as sent in. They are the result of a good deal of careful looking about. CHAPTER XVI 1877 FRANZ LISZT AT ZURICH--SWISS, GREAT LOVERS OF MUSIC--WAGNER ONCE LIVED HERE--HIS SINGULAR WAYS--DR. WILLI--MADAME LUCCA’S VILLA--LISZT’S KISSING BEES--JEFFERSON DAVIS’ DAUGHTER--A LAUGHABLE MISTAKE. _September, 1877._--The Swiss have almost as much love for music as the Italians, though they have no composers of great reputation. Every city, town, and hamlet has its Music Guilds and clubs. The whole male population seems to sing. There are many fine instrumental performers among the women, but few good singers. The male bird is the vocalist here. Zurich is a center for great concerts, oratorios, etc., where Europe’s greatest artists appear. The “Tonhalle” orchestra is one of the best in Europe. These are the men who first rehearsed and played Wagner’s earlier operas. Seven years of Wagner’s life were spent in Zurich, in exile. The people here still talk of his singular ways as a citizen. Zurich was then, as now, a Wagner-music loving place, even at a time when London and Paris would not listen to a Wagner opera. My friend here, Schulz-Beuthen, himself a composer, is the happy possessor of Wagner’s old piano, at which he composed some of his immortal works. Wagner was poor when in Zurich, and lived by writing musical criticisms. For his own music, there was no sale. He had one or two rich friends here, however, notably the Wiesendoncks and the Willis, who encouraged not only his music, but a most singular method he had of getting rid of debts. It was a pretty way he had of calling on these opulent friends and, by the merest accident, leaving his grocer’s, tailor’s or hostler’s bills lying on the drawing-room table. His kind friends naturally discovered the missives, and quietly _paid_ them. It was a little joke whispered about that the number of Wagner’s calls at rich men’s houses was entirely numbered by the bills he was owing. All the same, he had rather good times by the beautiful lake. Dr. Willi had Wagner one whole season at his lakeside home. Just across the lake was the villa of the Wiesendoncks, and Wagner kept a little boat very busy, carrying his operatic “Motives” back and forth between his kind musical patrons.