So Buonamici contented himself with a numerous but select clientele of private pupils, such as did not mind waiting an hour or so should he be detained in conversation with any attractive dog he might happen to meet and admire, and with occasional public appearances, mostly made at the pressing instigation of his friends. Possessed of a singularly beautiful touch and velvet tone (the nearest approach to that of Rubinstein in his gentler moods I have yet heard), his playing of Beethoven and Chopin was wholly admirable, and excelling as he did in that searching test of musicianship–chamber music–we could not but deplore a reticence which became almost a platform-phobia. But the artist-teacher's beneficent influence is still at work in Italy. << less