It was at this time that the most famous of all Paderewski portraits was made. It was a pencil drawing by the distinguished British artist, Edward Burne-Jones. The picture came into being in a delightful way. As Burne-Jones was walking down the street one day, he passed a young man with a radiant face and a halo of red-gold hair. The artist was so struck by this apparition that he rushed around the block quickly in order to pass it again. Then he rushed back home and announced to the astonished household, “I have just seen an archangel walking on the London pavement!” He grabbed a pencil and rapidly sketched what he could remember of the archangel’s appearance. A few days later Paderewski was brought by a mutual friend to pay a call on Burne-Jones. Much to his surprise he was met by his host not with a polite British greeting, but with an ecstatic cry, “It’s my archangel!” Before the astonished visitor could say a word, the artist had seized the unfinished picture and gone to work on it. A lady who heard him play that year wrote about it this way in her diary: “Went to the green drawing room and heard Monsieur Paderewski play on the piano. He does so quite marvelously, such power and such tender feeling. I really think he is quite equal to Rubinstein. He is young, about 28, with a sort of aureole of red hair standing out.” The admiring lady was Queen Victoria. Another victory had been won in his complete conquest of England. It was time to move on now and the logical world to be conquered next was the new one. In 1891, the firm of Steinway and Sons in New York offered Paderewski a contract for eighty concerts with a guarantee of $30,000. What young artist could refuse such an offer? On November 3, 1891, Paderewski sailed for New York. CHAPTER 4 A NEW WORLD TO CONQUER [Illustration: Coat of arms with Eagle.] Carnegie Hall in New York City has been the goal of musicians from all over the world for nearly three quarters of a century. But on November 17, 1891, when the new European artist first played there for an audience that had paid a total of only $500 to hear him, the famous hall was barely six months old. Paderewski was still slightly numb from his first impressions of the world he had come to conquer! After a long, rough crossing, his ship had docked late on a rainy night. In those days the first view of New York from the harbor was by no means the thrilling sight it is today. The famous skyline did not yet exist and the unlit waterfront consisted of a few dirty, low-lying buildings.