Tausig is so hasty and impatient that to be in his classes must be a fearful ordeal.... The last time I went into his class to hear him teach he was dreadful. Fräulein H. began, and she has remarkable talent... She would not play piano enough to suit him, and finally he stamped his foot at her, snatched her hand from the piano, and said: "Will you play piano or not, for if not we will go no farther?" The second girl sat down and played a few lines. He made her begin over again several times, and finally came up and took her music away and slapped it down on the piano... The third was Fräulein Timanoff, who is a little genius, I think. She brought a Sonata by Schubert—the lovely one in A minor... Timanoff began running it off in her usual nimble style.... She had not proceeded far down the first page when he stopped her.... She began again, but ...[h]e kept stopping her every moment in the most tantalizing and exasperating manner. If it had been I, I should have cried.... Tausig grew more and more savage, and made her skip whole pages in his impatience. "Play here!" he would say, in the most imperative tone, pointing to a half or whole page farther on. "This I cannot hear!—Go on farther!—It is too bad to be listened to!" Finally, he struck the music with the back of his hand, and exclaimed, in a despairing way, "Kind, es liegt eine Seele darin. Weiss du nicht es liegt eine SEELE darin? (Child, there's a soul in the piece. Don't you know there is a soul in it?)" To the little Timanoff, who has no soul, and who is not sufficiently experienced to counterfeit one, this speech evidently conveyed no particular idea. She ran on as glibly as ever till Tausig could endure no more.... I was much disappointed, as it was new to me, and I like to hear Timanoff's little fingers tinkle over the keys, "Seele" or no "Seele."... Last of all Fräulein L. played, and she alone suited Tausig. She is a Swede, and is the best scholar he has, but she has such frightfully ugly hands, and holds them so terribly, that when I look at her I cannot enjoy her playing. << less