admire.

Of Chopin's intercourse with the third of the "exceedingly interesting
acquaintances" whom he mentions by name, we get no particulars in his
letters. Still, Carl Maria von Bocklet, for whom Beethoven wrote three
letters of recommendation, who was an intimate friend of Schubert's, and
whose interpretations of classical works and power of improvisation gave
him one of the foremost places among the pianists of the day, cannot
have been without influence on Chopin. Bocklet, better than any other
pianist then living in Vienna, could bring the young Pole into closer
communication with the German masters of the preceding generation; he
could, as it were, transmit to him some of the spirit that animated
Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber. The absence of allusions to Bocklet in
Chopin's letters does not, however, prove that he never made any, for
the extant letters are only a small portion of those he actually wrote,
many of them having in the perturbed state of Poland never reached their
destination, others having been burnt by his parents for fear of
the Russian police, and some, no doubt, having been lost through
carelessness or indifference.

The list of Chopin's acquaintances is as yet far from being exhausted.
He had conversations with old Abbe Stadler, the friend of Haydn and
Mozart, whose Psalms, which he saw in MS., he admired. He also speaks
of one of the performances of old, sacred, and secular music which took
place at Kiesewetter's house as if he were going to it. But a musician
of Chopin's nature would not take a very lively interest in the
historical aspect of the art; nor would the learned investigator of the
music of the Netherlanders, of the music of the Arabs, of the life and
works of Guido d'Arezzo, &c., readily perceive the preciousness of the
modern composer's originality. At any rate, Chopin had more intercourse
with the musico-literary Franz Kandler, who wrote favourable criticisms
on his performances as a composer and player, and with whom he went on
one occasion to the Imperial Library, where the discovery of a certain
MS. surprised him even more than the magnitude and order of the
collection, which he could not imagine to be inferior to that of
Bologna--the manuscript in question being no other than his Op. 2, which
Haslinger had presented to the library. Chopin found another MS. of his,
that of the Rondo for two pianos, in Aloys Fuchs's famous collection of
autographs, which then comprised 400 n