forms often a false idea of him before one has seen him and
knows a portrait of him. I found Elsner almost exactly as I
had imagined him. Wisocki, the pianist, also a pupil of his,
took me to him. Pan Elsner lives in the Dom Pyarow [House of
Piarists]. One has to start early if one wishes to find him
at home; for soon after breakfast he goes out, and rarely
returns to his cell before evening. He inhabits, like a
genuine church composer, two cells of the old Piarist
Monastery in Jesuit Street, and in the dark passages which
lead to his rooms one sees here and there faded laid-aside
pictures of saints lying about, and old church banners
hanging down. The old gentleman was still in bed when we
arrived, and sent his servant to ask us to wait a little in
the anteroom, promising to be with us immediately. All the
walls of this room, or rather cell, were hung to the ceiling
with portraits of musicians, among them some very rare names
and faces. Mr. Elsner has continued this collection down to
the present time; also the portraits of Liszt, Thalberg,
Chopin, and Clara Wieck shine down from the old monastic
walls. I had scarcely looked about me in this large company
for a few minutes, when the door of the adjoining room
opened, and a man of medium height (not to say little),
somewhat stout, with a round, friendly countenance, grey
hair, but very lively eyes, enveloped in a warm fur dressing-
gown, stepped up to us, comfortably but quickly, and bade us
welcome. Wisocki kissed him, according to the Polish fashion,
as a token of respect, on the right shoulder, and introduced
me to him, whereupon the old friendly gentleman shook hands
with me and said some kindly words.