William Sterndale Bennett

"This," he said to me, "is Mr. Ferdinand David, the great violinist and leader of our orchestra.

And this," indicating the younger visitor, "is a countryman of yours, Mr. Sterndale Bennett.

We think a great deal of Mr. Bennett in Leipzig." "Aha!" said David to me.

"You've come to the right house in Leipzig if you're an Englishman.

Steep and strengthen them in the fresh animation of Mozart.

The music of the first act of Figaro I consider the most heavenly that Mozart ever wrote." And with his customary absolute freedom from professional envy, he terms Mendelssohn the Mozart of the nineteenth century, and will not even sit in the same room with anyone who disparages him.

He has upheld with noble enthusiasm the merits of such rising stars as Chopin, Heller, God, Sterndale Bennett, Berlioz, Franz, and Brahms.

He has, it may be said, only one bête noire, the blatant and flamboyant Meyerbeer.