The advances made me by the poet Baudelaire were in their way still more significant.  My acquaintance with him began with a letter in which he told me his impressions of my music and the effect it had produced upon him, in spite of his having thought till then that he possessed an artistic sense for colouring, but none for sound.  His opinions on the matter, which he expressed in the most fantastic terms and with audacious self-assurance, proved him, to say the least, a man of extraordinary understanding, who with impetuous energy followed the impressions he received from my music to their ultimate consequences.  He explained that he did not put his address to his letter in order that I might not be led to think that he wanted something from me.  Needless to say, I knew how to find him, and had soon included him among the acquaintances to whom I announced my intention of being at home every Wednesday evening.

I had been told by my older Parisian friends, amongst whom I continued to count the faithful Gasperini, that this was the right thing to do in Paris; and so it came about that, in accordance with the fashion, I used to hold a salon in my small house in the Rue Newton, which made Minna feel that she occupied a very dignified position, though she only knew a few scraps of French, with which she could barely help herself out.  This salon, which the Olliviers also attended in a friendly way, was crowded for a time by an ever-growing circle.  Here an old acquaintance of mine, Malwida von Meysenburg, again came across me, and from that time forth became a close friend for life.  I had only met her once before; this was during my visit to London in 1855, when she had made herself known to me by a letter in which she enthusiastically expressed her agreement with the opinions contained in my book Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft.  The occasion on which we had met in London had been at an evening party at the house of a family called Althaus, when I found her full of the desires and projects for the future perfection of the human race to which I had given expression in my book, but from which, under the influence of Schopenhauer and a profound realisation of the intense tragedy of life and the emptiness of its phenomena, I had turned away with almost a feeling of irritation.  I found it very painful in discussing the question, not to be understood by this enthusiastic friend and to have to appear to her in the light of a renegade from a noble cause.  We parted in London on very bad terms with one another.  It was almost a shock to me to meet Malwida again in Paris.  Very soon, however, all unpleasant recollections of our discussion in London were wiped out, as she at once explained to me, that our dispute had had the effect of making her decide to read Schopenhauer at once.  When, by earnest study, she had made herself acquainted with his philosophy, she came to the conclusion that the opinions she had at that time expressed and eagerly maintained concerning the happiness