Liszt himself did not then play [aged 75], though, when spending subsequent evenings at home in the Littleton family circle, he almost always went to the piano of his own accord and enchanted them with some piece or improvisation of his own. Once he surprised them by extemporizing marvelously upon themes from his oratorio "St. Elizabeth, " performances of which he attended both at St. James's Hall and the Crystal Palace. The welcome he received everywhere exceeded in warmth and spontaneity the expectations of his most fanatical admirers. Still more did the scenes enacted during his stay astonish this most petted and feted of septuagenarians, with whom anywhere outside "cold, unmusical England," such outbursts of enthusiasm had been the concomitants of a lifetime.