Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/146

136 him also that he has there thrown me into an abyss of follies and absurdities, but that I am dabbling about courageously, though prepared to extract nothing but nonsense."

For the musical miracles which it is given to Madame Sand's heroes and heroines to perform at a trifling cost, she may well at this time have come to regard them as almost in the natural order. She had received her second, and her best musical education through the contemplation of original musical genius, of the rarest quality, among her most intimate friends, her constant guests at Paris and Nohant. The vocal and instrumental feats of Consuelo and Count Albert themselves are not more astonishing than the actual recorded achievements of Liszt, pronounced a perfect virtuoso at twelve years old,—and no wonder! The boy had so carried away his accompanyists, the band of the Italian opera at Paris, by his performance of the solo in an orchestral piece, that when the moment came for them to strike in, one and all forgot to do so, but remained silent, petrified with amazement. And Liszt when in the full development of his genius had, as we have seen, been the art-comrade of George Sand; he had spent the whole of the summer season of 1837 at Nohant, transcribing Beethoven's symphonies for the pianoforte whilst she wrote her romances; she was familiar with his marvellous improvisations. In her "Trip to Chamounix" (Lettres d'un Voyageur, No. VI.) she