Edouard Wolff came to Paris in 1835, provided with a letter of introduction from Chopin’s master Zywny; [footnote:  See Vol.  I., p. 31.] but, notwithstanding this favourable opening of their acquaintanceship, he was only for some time on visiting terms with his more distinguished compatriot.  Wolff himself told me that Chopin would never hear one of his compositions.  From any other informant I would not have accepted this statement as probable, still less as true. [Footnote:  Wolff dedicated in 1841 his Grand Allegro de Concert pour piano still, Op. 59, a son ami Chopin; but the latter never repaid him the compliment.] These remarks about Wolff remind me of another piece of information I got from this pianist-composer a few months before his death—­ namely, that Chopin hated all Jews, Meyerbeer and Halevy among the rest.  What Pole does not hate the Jews?  That Chopin was not enamoured of them we have seen in his letters.  But that he hated Meyerbeer is a more than doubtful statement.  Franchomme said to me that Meyerbeer was not a great friend of Chopin’s; but that the latter, though he did not like his music, liked him as a man.  If Lenz reports accurately, Meyerbeer’s feelings towards Chopin were, no doubt, warmer than Chopin’s towards Meyerbeer.  When after the scene about the rhythm of a mazurka Chopin had left the room, Lenz introduced himself to Meyerbeer as a friend of the Counts Wielhorski, of St. Petersburg.  On coming to the door, where a coupe was waiting, the composer offered to drive him home, and when they were seated said:—­

I had not seen Chopin for a long time, I love him very much.  I know no pianist like him, no composer for the piano like him.  The piano lives on nuances and on cantilena; it is an instrument of intimacy [ein Intimitalsinstrument], I also was once a pianist, and there was a time when I trained myself to be a virtuoso.  Visit me when you come to Berlin.  Are we not now comrades?  When one has met at the house of so great a man, it was for life.

Kwiatkowski told me a pretty story which se non vero is certainly ben trovato.  When on one occasion Meyerbeer had fallen out with his wife, he sat down to the piano and played a nocturne or some other composition which Chopin had sent him.  And such was the effect of the music on his helpmate that she came and kissed him.  Thereupon Meyerbeer wrote Chopin a note telling him of what had taken place, and asking him to come and see their conjugal happiness.  Among the few musicians with whom Chopin had in later years friendly relations stands out prominently, both by his genius and the preference shown him, the pianist and composer Alkan aine (Charles Henri Valentine), who, however, was not so intimate with the Polish composer as Franchomme, nor on such easy terms of companionship as Hiller and Liszt had been.  The