f his melodious reveries." This
characterisation of Field's style is taken from Liszt's preface to the
nocturnes. Moscheles, with whom Field dined in London shortly before
the latter's visit to Paris, gives in his diary a by no means flattering
account of him. Of the man, the diarist says that he is good-natured but
not educated and rather droll, and that there cannot be a more glaring
contrast than that between Field's nocturnes and Field's manners, which
were often cynical. Of the artist, Moscheles remarks that while his
touch was admirable and his legato entrancing, his playing lacked spirit
and accent, light and shadow, and depth of feeling. M. Marmontel was
not far wrong when, before having heard Field, he regarded him as the
forerunner of Chopin, as a Chopin without his passion, sombre reveries,
heart-throes, and morbidity. The opinions which the two artists had of
each other and the degree of their mutual sympathy and antipathy may be
easily guessed. We are, however, not put to the trouble of guessing all.
Whoever has read anything about Chopin knows of course Field's criticism
of him--namely, that he was "un talent de chambre de malade," which,
by the by, reminds one of a remark of Auber's, who said that Chopin was
dying all his life (il se meurt tonte sa vie). It is a pity that we
have not, as a pendant to Field's criticism on Chopin, one of Chopin on
Field. But whatever impression Chopin may have received from the artist,
he cannot but have been repelled by the man. And yet the older artist's
natural disposition was congenial to that of the younger one, only
intemperate habits had vitiated it. Spohr saw Field in 1802-1803, and
describes him as a pale, overgrown youth, whose dreamy, melancholy
playing made people forget his awkward bearing and badly-fitting
clothes. One who knew Field at the time of his first successes portrays
him as a young man with blonde hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, and
pleasing features, expressive of the mood of the moment--of child-like
ingenuousness, modest good-nature, gentle roguishness, and artistic
aspiration. M. Marmontel, who made his acquaintance in 1832, represents
him as a worn-out, vulgar-looking man of fifty, whose outward appearance
contrasted painfully with his artistic performances, and whose heavy,
thick-set form in conjunction with the delicacy and dreaminess of his
musical thoughts and execution called to mind Rossini's saying of a
celebrated singer, "Elle a l'air d'