o more soirees this evening, and have many letters of
introduction to deliver.

MR. SILVER. Miss Emma, I have just heard that you play finely a great
deal of Chopin's music. Let us hear his two latest nocturnes.

MRS. GOLD (_to Emma_). Have you heard the famous Camilla Pleyel play
Kalkbrenner's charming D minor concerto? Do you not also play such
brilliant music? for example, Doehler's beautiful, pathetic Notturno in D
flat. Mr. X. lately played that to us enchantingly.

EMMA. I know it. I am teaching it to my little sister, Cecilia.

DOMINIE. Will you allow her now to play Chopin's two nocturnes, Opus
48?

* * * * *

I will say nothing about the conclusion of the singing,--the "Grace"
aria. At midnight there was a grand supper, washed down with sweet wine,
and seasoned with bitter recollections of this musical evening.

CHAPTER XV.

CONCLUSION.

I have received the following communication from an old literary friend,
to whom I sent my eighth chapter, requesting his opinion of it:--

MOTTO.

_There are unreceptive times, but
that which is eternal outlives all
times._--JOH. VON MUeLLER.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have read your eighth chapter. What you facetiously
call "the three trifles" seem to me to be three most important points,
even if you had described them simply as _fine_ taste, _deep_ feeling,
and _a good_ ear. Who expects superlative excellence from the age in
which he lives, and who dares to attack it, in its most vulnerable
parts? You grow more harsh and disagreeable, and you do not seem to
consider how many enemies you make, among those who think that they have
long ago advanced beyond these three points. Just now, too, when there
is so much said about "the intellectual" in music, and about "the inner
nature of the future," and when such fine expressions are invented about
it, you come forward with your three unseasonable trifles in the
superlative degree. Do you imagine that our intelligent age cannot
discern your hidden satire?

You say that our times are in need of your three trifles, _and_ the
necessary knowledge and experience. _Voila tout!_

As for Prince Louis Ferdinand, Dussek, Clementi, Himmel, Hummel, C.M.v.
Weber, Beethoven, &c.,--who has not heard all about them?

After them, comes the period of "piano fury," and the compositions
appropriate for it. Now the three trifles required are _distorted_
taste, _hypocritical_ feeling