In 1844 Europe was more liberal in some respects than America is to-day. Honours and applause were not denied to Liszt because he openly transgressed the sex conventions. Since 1835 his life had been shared by the beautiful Comtesse d'Agoult, the would-be rival, under the name "Daniel Stern," of the more celebrated Georges Sand. Of this union were born three children, one of whom became the wife of Richard Wagner. Madame d'Agoult was a Romanticist, and a very typical figure of her time and circle. She was an interesting woman, and tried hard to be more interesting still. But it was no affectation of passion that led her to abandon home, husband, and position, to throw herself into the pianist's arms at Basle. She was deeply in love with him; but she wished to be more than a wife, more than a lover: she aspired to be his muse. Liszt, however, needed no inspiration from without. In an oft-quoted phrase, he said that the Dantes created the Beatrices; "the genuine die when they are eighteen years old." The man chafed more and more under the ties that bound him. He had no wish to abandon the mother of his children, but his genius demanded to be unfettered. He wandered over Europe, sad and bitter at heart, but heaping up his laurels. The Comtesse and the children stayed in Paris, or at the villa Liszt had rented on the beautiful islet of Nonnenwerth, in the shadow of "the castled crag of Drachenfels." There he joined them from time to time, while unable to resist the conclusion that he and she must part. The evolution of their temperaments and intellects was in rapidly diverging directions. He was no longer willing to throw himself out of the window at her bidding as he had publicly declared himself to be four years before. The cord that bound them was frayed and fretted to a thread.
At Dresden fate threw Liszt and Lola Montez across each other's path. The intense, artistic nature of the man cried out with joy at the glorious beauty of the woman. Her inextinguishable vivacity, her almost masculine boldness, her frank and splendid animalism enraptured the musician, now sick to death of soulful conversations and the sentimentalities of Romanticism. It was the old struggle for the possession of the artist, waged by Silvia and Gioconda. Lola was beautiful as a tigress. To Liszt she could surrender herself proudly. She was one of those erotic women, whose passion is excited rather by a man's mental attributes than by his physical advantages. Intellect she adored. Her own strong nature could yield only to a stronger. We have heard how she spoke of Nicholas I.; we shall find this almost sensuous craving for force of personality in her subsequent relations. To her, the pianist must have been a new revelation of manhood. Her life so far had brought her in contact with Indian officers and civilians, a few men about town, and (for a few hours) with one or more potentates. Now she met a great man with a beautiful soul. She had heard the stories current of Liszt's abnegation, his boundless generosity, his pride in his vocation. In her, too, he recognised a haughty intolerance of patronage, a contempt for those in high places, such as he had himself exhibited. Both could laugh over the slights to which they had subjected the King of Prussia, and their demeanour in presence of the mighty Tsar. It is likely enough that their conversation may have begun in some such fashion; how their love ripened we are left to guess. On this episode in her history Lola exhibits unwonted reserve. She mentions meeting Liszt at Dresden, and speaks of the furore he created. As to their love passages, she is silent. I like to think that this was a secret she held sacred, that her love for the great musician had in it something fresh and noble, which distinguished it from the emotions excited in her by all other men. Women of many attachments are prone to idealise one among them.