he honour. I hastened to
announce this good news to Chopin, who quietly said to me: "I should
have liked better if it had been you." "What are you thinking of my dear
friend! An article by Liszt, that is a fortunate thing for the public
and for you. Trust in his admiration for your talent. I promise you
qu'il vous fera un beau royaume.'--'Oui, me dit-il en souriant, dans son
empire!'""]

These few words speak volumes. But here is what Liszt wrote about the
concert in the "Gazette musicale" of May 2, 1841:--

Last Monday, at eight o'clock in the evening, M. Pleyel's
rooms were brilliantly lighted up; numerous carriages brought
incessantly to the foot of a staircase covered with carpet and
perfumed with flowers the most elegant women, the most
fashionable young men, the most celebrated artists, the
richest financiers, the most illustrious noblemen, a whole
elite of society, a whole aristocracy of birth, fortune,
talent, and beauty.

A grand piano was open on a platform; people crowded round,
eager for the seats nearest it; they prepared to listen, they
composed them-selves, they said to themselves that they must
not lose a chord, a note, an intention, a thought of him who
was going to seat himself there. And people were right in
being thus eager, attentive, and religiously moved, because he
for whom they waited, whom they wished to hear, admire, and
applaud, was not only a clever virtuoso, a pianist expert in
the art of making notes [de faire des notes], not only an
artist of great renown, he was all this and more than all
this, he was Chopin...

...If less eclat has gathered round his name, if a less bright
aureole has encircled his head, it is not because he had not in
him perhaps the same depth of feeling as the illustrious author
of "Conrad Wallenrod" and the "Pilgrims," [FOOTNOTE: Adam
Mickiewicz.] but his means of expression were too limited, his
instrument too imperfect; he could not reveal his whole self by
means of a piano. Hence, if we are not mistaken, a dull and
continual suffering, a certain repugnance to reveal himself to
the outer world, a sadness which shrinks out of sight under
apparent gaiety, in short, a whole individuality in the highest
degree remarkable and attractive.

...It was only rarely, at very distant intervals, that Chopin
played in public; but what would have been for anyone else an
almost certain cause of oblivion a