At the Hotel Bellevue [...] I saw for the first and last time Franz Liszt. I was sitting in the reading room of the good old hotel when the door exactly facing me opened a little and that marvellous old head looked smilingly in and quietly withdrew. I was intensely excited [...]. The next day (at midday table d'hote- no little tables in those days) Liszt sat at the head of the long table, his daughter Cosima, Siegfried Wagner, Eugen d'Albert and Stavenhagen neighbouring him, so that my insignificant self was only about four seats from the fountainhead. It was a joy to be there, if only to see how perfectly the master kept the ball of conversation rolling, how urbanely and easily he dominated.[...]. He must have been about eighty years of age. The cause of this gathering was the first performance of the "Ring" as a cycle, at the Munich opera house. We saw two of the performances, but I fear I was already becoming a little tepid about Wagner's music; in any case I do not remember any particular excellence or incident about either "Die Walkure" or "Gotterdammerung". I cherished hopes of meeting Liszt accidentally in the hotel and expressing my homage, but the opportunity never came. << less