That consummate interpretation of a work proves not one's ability to create its like is shown by the coming together of Chopin and Liszt. While Liszt was indubitably of advantage to Chopin, the latter in turn reacted upon the former. In the nature of the fiery Hungarian, and that of the dreamy Pole, were those resemblances and differences which make high friendship a possibility and also a means of mutual growth through reciprocity of ideas. The fascinating and dominating Liszt was by nature a Bohemian. From first to last he dwelt in the realm of those laxities and unconventionalities which dismay the ordinary mortal, but whose glamour is over the life of many an artist. And yet, despite every shortcoming, Liszt had that which was much indeed, a virtue frequently the saving one of genius, to wit, the artistic conscience. Beneath a demeanor disguising rather than revealing his inner self, Chopin was an ardent soul, a Polish patriot from whose heart overflowed, to his every page, the sorrows of his native land. Those sorrows were a cloud shadowing the radiance of his ideal world, and at times dulling it almost to the sombre hues of this earth, begetter of many sorrows. It is regrettable that Chopin sought to bind within the limits of conventional forms, already half outgrown, his poetical ideas amenable only to the requirements of those freer forms for which Berlioz and Schumann were striving, and to which Wagner ultimately attained. In his Impromptus, and a few other ventures beyond self-imposed barriers, Chopin made most praiseworthy use of freedom, but quickly he returns to contemplation of his beloved Mozart, that perfect master of classical form. Naturally the polished frequenter of the Parisian drawing-room and salon, found no lasting pleasure in the wild freedom and amplitude of the forest of Romanticism. The change was too abrupt and novel. Those far-reaching vistas of unfrequented shade! How different from the metropolitan thoroughfare! Those mighty but fantastically-growing trees thick-planted by Nature's careless hand! those never-trimmed and irregular branches! those fallen and dismantled trunks! How unlike the well-kept parks of Paris and Versailles! While composing, Chopin never quite divorced himself from the keyboard of his piano, and yet the writer who would attain to untrammeled expression, in both matter and form, should compose beneath a roof no narrower than the dome of heaven. Let the study be his reference room, his library, and, for convenience, his place of final elaboration. Like Beethoven and Wordsworth, let him receive at first hand the impartings of Nature that needed teacher of us all. In the heart of Chopin the melodies of his beloved Poland, mingling with his own imaginings, became invested with a subtle, poetical charm and a delicate sweetness idealizing their own quaint loveliness.