gambling, for having been reduced to extreme poverty, he was tempted to
sell it. The price offered was a large one. At this juncture he won one
hundred and sixty francs, which saved the violin, but the mental agony
he endured through the affair convinced him that a gamester is an
object of contempt to all well regulated minds.

Paganini won another violin by his ability to read music at sight.
Pasini, an eminent painter and an amateur violinist, refused to believe
the wonderful faculty for playing at sight, which had been imputed to
Paganini, and in order to test it brought him a manuscript concerto
containing some difficulties considered as insurmountable. "This
instrument shall be yours," said Pasini, placing in his hands an
excellent Stradivari, "if you can play, in a masterly manner, this
concerto, at first sight." Paganini accepted the challenge, threw Pasini
into ecstasies, and became the owner of the instrument.

The severe course of dissipation in which Paganini indulged during these
days of his youth ruined his health, and caused him frequently to
disappear from the public gaze for long periods, throughout his career.
With the fair sex he had more than one romantic episode. At one time a
lady of high rank fell in love with him and led him captive to her
castle in Tuscany. Here the lovers solaced themselves with duets on the
guitar, and the violinist attained a proficiency, on that instrument,
equal to the expression of the tenderest passion. This adventure brought
retribution in after days, and in a most unexpected manner, for as his
genius began to excite the wonder of the world, sundry malicious stories
concerning him were invented and circulated. One of these stories was to
the effect that he had been imprisoned for stabbing one of his friends,
another rumour said that he strangled his wife, and that during his
imprisonment he had been allowed only the solace of playing his violin