I esteem Liszt very highly as a gifted pianist and as a gracious, clever, well-informed man... [O]ne's astonishment knows no bounds when one has seen him play at sight, and without hesitation, the most difficult and illegible manuscripts, hardly intelligible to their composer himself. I once had this indescribable pleasure. Liszt was at the time a regular visitor at our house and called one evening with our distinguished and dearly beloved friend Chopin. The latter brought with him a manuscript that he had just com­pleted and preferred hearing it from Liszt to playing it himself.