me to inquire for him that
he was all day long in church, and had ceased to occupy himself, as he
should, with music.

It was toward the close of 1831 that Liszt met Chopin in Paris. From
the first, these two men, so different, became fast friends. Chopin's
delicate, retiring soul found a singular delight in Liszt's strong and
imposing personality. Liszt's exquisite perception enabled him
perfectly to live in the strange dreamland of Chopin's fancies, while
his own vigor inspired Chopin with nerve to conceive those mighty
Polonaises that he could never properly play himself, and which he so
gladly committed to the keeping of his prodigious friend. Liszt
undertook the task of interpreting Chopin to the mixed crowds which he
revelled in subduing, but from which his fastidious and delicately
strung friend shrank with something like aversion.

From Chopin, Liszt and all the world after him got that _tempo
rubato_, that playing with the duration of notes without breaking the
time, and those arabesque ornaments which are woven like fine
embroidery all about the pages of Chopin's nocturnes, and lift what in
others are mere casual flourishes into the dignity of interpretative
phrases and poetic commentaries on the text.

People were fond of comparing the two young men who so often appeared
in the same salons together--Liszt with his finely shaped, long, oval
head and _profil d'ivoire_, set proudly on his shoulders, his stiff
hair of dark blonde thrown back from the forehead without a parting,
and cut in a straight line, his _aplomb_, his magnificent and courtly
bearing, his ready tongue, his flashing wit and fine irony, his genial
_bonhomie_ and irresistibly winning smile; and Chopin, also, with dark
blonde hair, but soft as silk, parted on one side, to use Liszt's own
words, "An angel of fair countenance, with brown eyes from which
intellect beamed rather than burned; a gentle, refined smile, slightly
aquiline nose; a delicious, clear, almost diaphanous complexion, all
bearing witness to the harmony of a soul which required no commentary
beyond itself."

Nothing can be more generous or more true than Liszt's recognition of
Chopin's independent support. "To our endeavors," he says, "to our
struggles, just then so much needing certainty, he lent us the support
of a calm, unshakable conviction, equally armed against apathy and
cajolery." There was only one picture on the walls of Chopin's room;
it hung just above his piano.