prayers--
That Juno yearned with no diviner soul
To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.
The exceeding mystery of the loveliness
Sadden'd delight; and, with his mournful look,
Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face
Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed
Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes
One that has parted from his soul for pride,
And in the sable secret lived forlorn.

"To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made
on everybody, foreign or native, an Italian who stood near me said to
himself, with a long sigh, 'O Dio!' and this had not been said long,
when another person in the same tone uttered 'Oh Christ!' Musicians
pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as
possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him."

The impression made by Paganini was something more than that of a great,
even the greatest, violinist. It was as if some demoniac power lay
behind the human, prisoned and dumb except through the agencies of
music, but able to fill expression with faint, far-away cries of
passion, anguish, love, and aspiration--echoes from the supernatural
and invisible. His hearers forgot the admiration due to the wonderful
virtuoso, and seemed to listen to voices from another world. The strange
rumors that were current about him, Paganini seems to have been not
disinclined to encourage, for, mingled with his extraordinary genius,
there was an element of charlatanism. It was commonly reported that
his wonderful execution on the G-string was due to a long imprisonment,
inflicted on him for the assassination of a rival in love, during which
he had a violin with one string only. Paganini himself writes that, "At
Vienna one of the audience affirmed publicly that my performance was
not surprising, for he had distinctly seen, while I was playing my
variations, the devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow.
My resemblance to the devil was a proof of my origin." Even sensible
people believed that Paganini had some uncanny and unlawful secret which
enabled him to do what was impossible for other players. At Prague he
actually printed a letter from his mother to prove that he was not the
son of the devil. It was not only the perfectly novel and astonishing
character of his playing, but to a large extent his ghostlike
appearance, which caused such absurd rumors. The tall, skeleton-like
figure, the pale, narr