Heine relates the following curious conversation he had with a medical man about Liszt:
"A physician whose specialty is woman, whom I questioned as to the fascination which Liszt exercises on his public, smiled very strangely, and at the same time spoke of magnetism, galvanism, and electricity, of contagion in a sultry hall, filled with innumerable wax-lights, and some hundred perfumed and perspiring people, of histrionic epilepsy, of the phenomenon of tickling, of musical cantharides, and other unmentionable matters, which, I think, have to do with the mysteries of the bona dea; the solution of the question, however, does not lie perhaps so strangely deep, but on a very prosaic surface. I am sometimes inclined to think that the whole witchery might be explained thus--namely, that nobody in this world knows so well how to organise his successes, or rather their mise en scène, as Franz Liszt. In this art he is a genius, a Philadelphia, a Bosco, a Houdin--yea, a Meyerbeer. The most distinguished persons serve him gratis as compères, and his hired enthusiasts are drilled in an exemplary way."
This amusing anecdote about Liszt and the once famous tenor, Rubini, is also told by Heine:
"The celebrated singer had undertaken a tour with Franz Liszt, sharing expenses and profits. The great pianist took Signor Belloni about with him everywhere (the entrepreneur in general of his reputation), and to him was left the whole of the business management. When, however, all accounts had been settled up, and Signor Belloni presented his little bill, what was Rubini's horror to find that among the mutual expenses there appeared sundry considerable items for 'laurel wreaths,' 'bouquets,' 'laudatory poems,' and suchlike 'ovation expenses.'
"The naïve singer had, in his innocence, imagined that he had been granted these tokens of public favour solely on account of his lovely voice. He flew into a great rage, and swore he would not pay for the bouquets which probably contained the most expensive camellias."
That Heine could appreciate Liszt seriously, these extracts testify sufficiently:
"He (Liszt) is indisputably the artist in Paris who finds the most unlimited enthusiasm as well as the most zealous opponents. It is a characteristic sign that no one speaks of him with indifference. Without power no one in this world can excite either favourable or hostile passions. One must possess fire to excite men to hatred as well as to love. That which testifies especially for Liszt is the complete esteem with which even his enemies speak of his personal worth. He is a man of whimsical but noble character, unselfish and without deceit. Especially remarkable are his spiritual proclivities; he has great taste for speculative ideas, and he takes even more interest in the essays of the various schools which occupy themselves with the solution of the problems of heaven and earth than in his art itself. It is, however, praiseworthy, this indefatigable yearning after light and divinity; it is a proof of his taste for the holy, for the religious....