But quite enough has been said in reference to Paganini's avarice: it has been shown that he had a motive for saving money. Is it as easy to account for other traits of his character? That aloofness, that scorn of the world, that hard bargaining: "Take me or leave me," revealing callous indifference, was there no cause for all that? There is a very graphic, and at the same time, appalling, account of the impression produced by Paganini among the Parisians, which is translated at length in Dubourg's "The Violin." Berlioz wrote of the weird genius making his appearance in France during the uproar of the collapse of a dynasty, and arriving in Paris--with the cholera. The terrors of the scourge were powerless to check the tide of curiosity: the people were mad for the time being. This is the conclusion of the notice just mentioned: "Of such a public, and such an artist, how saddening is the sight!... The public, made up of idlers--of beings isolated, cold, corrupt--must be _amused_, forsooth! and the artist exhausts his taste and his sentiment, and well nigh perspires blood and water, to comply with their exactions--to _amuse_ them! and if he attain this end, the public clap their hands, the manager of the theatre counts out to him a heap of gold, and he goes away, with his ears deafened at the noise which has surrounded him, and which, for a moment, it may be, has made his heart beat high;--he goes away, with a loving grasp tightened over the coin he has so hardly won; and now inwardly exclaims, with a smile of pity, 'The blockheads--the barbarians! who is there among them that can comprehend me--that can _feel_ my intentions!' and then the home-returning public, selfish to the very soul, indemnify themselves for their finger's-end applause by sottish contempt, by remarks that are empty, or worse--that are scornful, bitter, shocking, disgusting even--such as those which may have been buzzed into one's ears in Italy or in Paris, but varied in a hundred ways, and aggravated at will, just as _he_ varies and enlarges, twists and turns, beneath his magic bow, a subject of apparently the most simple and insignificant kind. And now the voices most distinguishable among the ebbing crowd murmur out the words, 'Gambler, Libertine'! or worse.... And the privileged public resort again to the theatre, to admire the talent of him who they comprehend not; and the artist returns, in like manner, to _amuse_ those who provoke his pity, and whom he beholds so far below him! Thus we have contempt on one side, compassion on the other; applause from hands chilled with the touch of gold, on the one part,--on the other, sounds that borrow their animation from no social sympathy! Such are the relations between the public and the professor--such the bonds that connect them!" Unhappy artist; miserable public! How shall we account for this pitiful state of things, this gulf between the performer and the auditor? We must seek the