hat he went with him to an organ recital given by Hesse, the
previously-mentioned Adolf Hesse of Breslau, of whom Chopin now remarked
that he had talent and knew how to treat his instrument. Hesse and
Chopin must have had some personal intercourse, for we learn that
the former left with the latter an album leaf. A propos of this
circumstance, Chopin confesses in a letter to his people that he is at
a loss what to write, that he lacks the requisite wit. But let us
return to the brilliant pianist, who, of course, was a more interesting
acquaintance in Chopin's, eyes than the great organist. Born in 1812,
and consequently three years younger than Chopin, Sigismund Thalberg had
already in his fifteenth year played with success in public, and at the
age of sixteen published Op. 1, 2, and 3. However, when Chopin made his
acquaintance, he had not yet begun to play only his own compositions
(about that time he played, for instance, Beethoven's C minor Concerto
at one of the Spirituel-Concerte, where since 1830 instrumental solos
were occasionally heard), nor had he attained that in its way
unique perfection of beauty of tone and elegance of execution which
distinguished him afterwards. Indeed, the palmy days of his career
cannot be dated farther back than the year 1835, when he and Chopin met
again in Paris; but then his success was so enormous that his fame in a
short time became universal, and as a virtuoso only one rival was left
him--Liszt, the unconquered. That Chopin and Thalberg entertained very
high opinions of each other cannot be asserted. Let the reader judge
for himself after reading what Chopin says in his letter of December 25,
1830:--

Thalberg plays famously, but he is not my man. He is younger
than I, pleases the ladies very much, makes pot-pourris on
"La Muette" ["Masaniello"], plays the forte and piano with
the pedal, but not with the hand, takes tenths as easily as I
do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds. Moscheles does not
at all astonish him; therefore it is no wonder that only the
tuttis of my concerto have pleased him. He, too, writes
concertos.

Chopin was endowed with a considerable power of sarcasm, and was fond of
cultivating and exercising it. This portraiture of his brother-artist is
not a bad specimen of its kind, although we shall meet with better ones.

Another, but as yet unfledged, celebrity was at that time living in
Vienna, prosecuting his studies under Czerny-