I pressed downwards, climbing over the benches, driving my way among those who stood, that I might see all as well as feel; but at length I stood upon a seat and beheld what was worth beholding, is bright to remember; but oh, how hopeless to record! Just so might a painter dream to pour upon his canvas an extreme effect of sunset,--those gorgeous effusions of golden flame and blinding roses that are dashed into dazzling mist before our hearts have gathered them to us, have made them, in beauty so blazingly serene, our own. The sound of the keys, so brilliant, grew dulled as by a tempest voice in distance; not alone the hurrahs, the vivas, but the stir, the crash of the dividing multitude. And before almost I could believe it, I beheld moving through the cloven crowd that slight and unembarrassed form; but he seemed alone to move as if urged by some potent necessity, for his head was carried loftily, and there was not the shadow of a smile upon his face. It was evident that the people, between pressing and thronging, were determined to conduct him to the platform; and it struck me, from his hasty step and slightly troubled air, that he longed to reach it, for calm to be restored. Milans-André, meantime,--will it be believed?--continued playing, and scarcely raised his eyes as my conductor at length mounted the steps, and seemed to my sight to shrink among those who now stood about him. But it was hopeless to restore the calm. I knew that from the first. He had no sooner trodden the elevation than a burst of joyous welcome that drowned the keys, that drenched the very ear, forced the pianist to quit his place. No one looked at him of young or old, except those who had confronted him at the table. They surrounded him, some with smiles and eager questions; some with provoking gravity. The other was left alone to stem, as it were, that tide of deafening acclaim; he slightly compressed his lip, made a slight motion forwards; he lifted his hand with the slight deprecation that modesty or pride might have suggested alike,--still hopelessly. The arrears of enthusiasm demanded to be paid with interest; the trampings, the shower-like claps, the shouts, only deepened, widened tenfold: the multitude became a mob, and frantic,--but with a glorious zeal! Some tore handfuls of the green adorning the pillars, and passing it forward, it was strewn on the steps. From the galleries hung the excited children, girls and boys, and dividing their bouquets, rained the roses upon his head, that floated, crimson and pink and pearly, to the green floor beneath his feet. With a sort of delicate desperation he shook his hair from those dropped flowers, and for one instant hid his face; the next, flung down his hands, and smiled a flashing smile,--so that, from lip to brow, it was as if some sunbeam fluttered in the cage of a rosy cloud, smiling above, below, and everywhere it seemed,--ran round the group of professors to the piano, and without seating himself, without