nstant. One has no
impression of their having cost him either forethought or labor....
The word difficulty has no place in his vocabulary.... etc." Paganini's
lengthened tour through London and the provinces was everywhere attended
with the same success, and brought him in a golden harvest, for his
reputation had now grown so portentous that he could exact the greatest
terms from managers.

Paganini avowed himself as not altogether pleased with England, but,
under the surface of such complaints as the following, one detects the
ring of gratified vanity. He writes in a MS. letter, dated from London
in 1831, of the excessive and noisy admiration to which he was subjected
in the London streets, which left him no peace, and actually blocked his
passage to and from the theatre. "Although the public curiosity to see
me," says he, "is long since satisfied; though I have played in public
at least thirty times, and my likeness has been reproduced in all
possible styles and forms, yet I can never leave my home without being
mobbed by people who are not content with following and jostling me, but
actually get in front of me, and prevent my going either way, address me
in English of which I don't know a word, and even feel me as if to find
out if I am made of flesh and blood. And this is not only among the
common people, but among the upper classes." Paganini repeated his visit
to England during the next season, playing his final farewell concert at
the Victoria Theatre, London, June 17, 1832. The two following years
our artist lived in Paris, and was the great lion of musical and
social circles. People professed to be as much charmed with his lack of
pretension, his _naive_ and simple manners, as with his musical genius.
Yet no man was more exacting of his rights as an artist. One day a court
concert was announced at the Tuilleries, at which Paganini was asked
to play. He consented, and went to examine the room the day before. He
objected to the numerous curtains, so hung as to deaden the sound,
and requested the superintendent to see that they were changed. The
supercilious official ignored the artist's wish, and the offended
Paganini determined not to play. When the hour of the concert arrived,
there was no violinist. The royalties and their attendants were all
seated; murmurs arose, but still no Paganini. At last an official was
sent to the hotel of the artist, only to be informed that _the great
violinist had not gone out, but