He is a small, puny-built man, with gold rings in his ears, and a
face of genteel ugliness, but touchingly lugubrious in its
expression. With his violin at his shoulder, he has the air of a
husband undergoing the nocturnal penance of walking the room with
'the child'--and performing it, too, with unaffected pity. He plays
with the purest and coldest perfection of art, and is doubtless
more learned on the violin than either of the rival performers [Ole
Bull and Artot], but there is a vitreous clearness and precision in
his notes that would make them more germane to the humour of before
breakfast than to the warm abandon of vespertide. His sister
travels with him (a pretty blonde, very unlike him), and
accompanies him on the piano."

Vieuxtemps also visited America in 1870, with the celebrated singer
Christine Nilsson.

Among the celebrated violinists of this period must be mentioned
Bernhard Molique, of whom Sir Charles Hallé says that he was a good
executant, knowing no difficulties, but his style was polished and cold,
and he never carried his public with him. "Ernst," he continues, "was
all passion and fire, regulated by reverence for and clear understanding
of the masterpieces he had to interpret. Sainton was extremely elegant
and finished in his phrasing, but vastly inferior to the others.
Vieuxtemps was an admirable violinist and a great musician, whose
compositions deserve a much higher rank than it is the fashion to accord
them."

Molique was the son of a town musician of Nuremberg, and became a
composer whose works have stood the test of time. He was a pupil of
Kreutzer and of Spohr, and held the position of director and first