Fragments of an
Autobiography
DEDICATED TO MY WIFE
Fragments
of an
Autobiography
BY
FELIX MOSCHELES
AUTHOR OF "IN BOHEMIA WITH DU MAURIER," ETC.
London
JAMES NISBET & CO., LTD.
21 BERNERS STREET
1899
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
HAVE often found it hard to read a preface; much harder do I find itto-day to write one. If I do so, it is because it gives me anopportunity of owning that I have strung these my reminiscences togethermost unceremoniously and unsystematically. They are to be taken only as"Fragments of an Autobiography," very much on the same lines as thefirst volume which recorded my adventures in Bohemia with Du Maurier. Ifthe reader, thus duly forewarned, elects to follow me over the unevenroad, he will, I trust, not mind a little jolting. If, however, hejudges that the gaps and omissions in my life-story are unjustifiable,he must not be surprised should I attempt to set things right in a thirdvolume. I should be all the more inclined to do so as there are someother fragments and segments waiting to be pieced together which areconnected with the brightest days of my life.
The writing of the present chapters has often been a source of genuinepleasure to me, for I say with Bolingbroke in Richard II.: "I countmyself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my goodfriends."
And now that I have come to a full stop, I am left in that pleasantframe of mind in which I would fain believe in the proverbial kindnessof the reader—that deity from times immemorial appealed to by thepreface-writer,—a frame of mind unduly optimistic perhaps, but whichemboldens me to hope that I may find some new friends amongst those whowill care to read what I have to say about the old ones.
F. M.
London, February 1899.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE | |
| Early Impressions | 1 |
| CHAPTER II | |