These few words speak volumes.  But here is what Liszt wrote about the concert in the “Gazette musicale” of May 2, 1841:—­

Last Monday, at eight o’clock in the evening, M. Pleyel’s rooms were brilliantly lighted up; numerous carriages brought incessantly to the foot of a staircase covered with carpet and perfumed with flowers the most elegant women, the most fashionable young men, the most celebrated artists, the richest financiers, the most illustrious noblemen, a whole elite of society, a whole aristocracy of birth, fortune, talent, and beauty.

A grand piano was open on a platform; people crowded round, eager for the seats nearest it; they prepared to listen, they composed them-selves, they said to themselves that they must not lose a chord, a note, an intention, a thought of him who was going to seat himself there.  And people were right in being thus eager, attentive, and religiously moved, because he for whom they waited, whom they wished to hear, admire, and applaud, was not only a clever virtuoso, a pianist expert in the art of making notes [de faire des notes], not only an artist of great renown, he was all this and more than all this, he was Chopin...

...If less eclat has gathered round his name, if a less bright aureole has encircled his head, it is not because he had not in him perhaps the same depth of feeling as the illustrious author of “Conrad Wallenrod” and the “Pilgrims,” [Footnote:  Adam Mickiewicz.] but his means of expression were too limited, his instrument too imperfect; he could not reveal his whole self by means of a piano.  Hence, if we are not mistaken, a dull and continual suffering, a certain repugnance to reveal himself to the outer world, a sadness which shrinks out of sight under apparent gaiety, in short, a whole individuality in the highest degree remarkable and attractive.

...It was only rarely, at very distant intervals, that Chopin played in public; but what would have been for anyone else an almost certain cause of oblivion and obscurity was precisely what assured to him a fame above the caprices of fashion, and kept him from rivalries, jealousies, and injustice.  Chopin, who has taken no part in the extreme movement which for several years has thrust one on another and one against another the executive artists from all quarters of the world, has been constantly surrounded by faithful adepts, enthusiastic pupils, and warm friends, all of whom, while guarding him against disagreeable contests and painful collisions, have not ceased to spread abroad his works, and with them admiration for his name.  Moreover, this exquisite, altogether lofty, and eminently aristocratic celebrity has remained unattacked.  A complete silence of criticism already reigns round it, as if posterity were come; and in the brilliant audience which flocked together to hear the too long silent poet there was neither reticence nor restriction, unanimous