her till all was over.

There was now another bond between them, the sympathy over the loss
of their dear ones. The Count had requested that the lessons should be
resumed. But when the young teacher remained too long in converse with
his pupil after the lessons, he was dismissed by the Count, and all
their sweet intercourse came to an abrupt end.

Mme. Liszt did all she could to soothe the grief and despair of her
son. For days and weeks he remained at home, neglecting his piano and
his work. He again thought of the church with renewed ardor and told
his mother he now had decided to become a monk. His spirits sank very
low; he became ill, unable to leave the house and it was reported
everywhere he had passed away.

Again he rallied and his strong constitution conquered. As strength
slowly returned, so also did his activity and love of life.

During his long convalescence he was seized with a great desire for
knowledge, and read everything he could lay hands on. He would often
sit at the piano, busying his fingers with technic while reading a
book on the desk before him. He had formerly given all his time to
music and languages; now he must know literature, politics, history
and exact sciences. A word casually dropped in conversation, would
start him on a new line of reading. Then came the revolution of 1830.
Everybody talked politics, and Franz, with his excitable spirits,
would have rushed into the conflict if his mother had not restrained
him.

With all this awakening he sought to broaden his art, to make his
instrument speak of higher things. Indeed the spirit must speak
through the form. This he realized the more as he listened to the
thrilling performances of that wizard of the violin, Paganini,
who appeared in Paris in 1831. This style of playing made a deep
impression on Liszt. He now tried to do on the piano what Paganini
accomplished on the violin, in the matter of tone quality and
intensity. He procured the newly published Caprices for violin and
tried to learn their tonal secrets, also transcribing the pieces for
piano.

Liszt became fast friends with the young composer, Hector Berlioz,
and much influenced by his compositions, which were along new harmonic
lines. Chopin, the young Polish artist, now appeared in Paris, playing
his E minor Concerto, his Mazurkas and Nocturnes, revealing new phases
of art. Chopin's calm composure tranquilized Liszt's excitable nature.
From Chopin, Liszt learned to "expre