As a mere child he had formed the habit of mimicking and
caricaturing pianists and other distinguished men. Liszt often
suffered from this mischievous habit, but he did not complain, and
even seemed to enjoy it. Of Chopin's wit, two specimens may be cited.
A rich Parisian one day invited him to dinner, with the intention of
getting him to entertain the guests afterward. In this case, however,
the host had reckoned without the guest, for, when asked to play,
Chopin exclaimed, "But, my dear sir, I have eaten so little." The
other instance occurs in one of his letters, where he says of the
pianist Aloys Schmitt, that he was forty years old, and his
compositions eighty--a _bon mot_ worthy of Heine.
There was much, indeed, in common between Chopin and Heine. Nothing is
more characteristic of Heine than the way in which he works up our
sentimental feelings only to knock us on the head with a comic or
grotesque line at the end. Similarly, Chopin, after improvising for
his friends for an hour or two, would suddenly rouse them from their
reveries by a _glissando_--sliding his fingers from one end of the
key-board to the other.
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