150 Mr. George Henschel [June 2, 



to hear colleagues of mine praise me to my face in such an exagger- 

 ated manner." 



Thus he went on ; it was no longer modesty, it was humility, and 

 I took good care not to disturb his mood by a single word. 



Soon, however, he smiled again, and remarked, among other 

 things, that he considered the agitato from his still unpublished 

 "Quartet in B flat" the most amorous, affectionate thing he had 

 written. 



When we parted that night, he said : " You will write me from 

 Bayreuth, won't you ? I know you will rave about it, and I don't 

 blame you. I myself must confess ' Walkiire ' and ' Gotterdam- 

 merung ' have a great hold on me. For ' Bheingold ' and ' Siegfried ' 

 I do not particularly care. If I only knew what becomes of the 

 Ring and what Wagner means by it ! Perhaps the cross ? Hebbel, 

 in his ' Nibelunge,' has dared it, and perhaps it was Wagner's mean- 

 ing too. I am by no means a fanatic devotee, but that, at least, 

 would be an idea — thus to indicate the termination of the reign of 

 the gods." 



July 18. — At luncheon, as it was my last day, we had a bottle of 

 champagne between us. In the afternoon, the other guests having 

 partly retired to their rooms, partly gone on excursions, Brahms 

 played the accompaniments to some songs for me. Since our arrival 

 this was the first time that he had touched the keyboard and that I 

 had sung. I began with Brahms' " Mainacht," then came a Schubert 

 song, and then Beethoven's cyclus, "To the Absent Beloved." 

 When we had ended we were surprised to find that all of the ad- 

 joining rooms had filled with listeners. Mine host of the Fahrnberg 

 was greatly touched, and thanked Brahms for the honour he had done 

 to his house. 



In the train to Berlin, July 19. — This morning, at five o'clock, I 

 left Sassnitz. Strangely enough, it again poured in torrents as on the 

 night of my arrival. A horrid, chilly morning. Brahms was up at 

 the Fahrnberg a little before five, and, to my delight, accompanied 

 me in the diligence as far as Lancken, some three miles from Sass- 

 nitz. There he got out, we shook hands, and parted. For a long 

 time I looked after him out of the carriage window in spite of the 

 still pouring rain. It was a picture never to be forgotten. As far 

 as the eye could reach, nothing but moor, and clouds, and — Brahms. 



Here closes the journal. During the twenty-one years of undis- 

 turbed friendship, our intercourse had to be more by letter, our 

 meetings fewer and farther between ; the channel and, later the 

 Atlantic separating us bodily. 



There have Uved great artists who have been small men. In 

 Brahms, both the artist and the man aspired to great and lofty ideals. 



He never aimed at gaining for himself — through glittering, dazz- 

 hng play with tones — the quickly fading crowns of popular favour. 



