It is, perhaps, absurd to speak of his [Anton Rubinstein] touch as though it were a special capability; for he is possessed of every imaginable sort of touch, from the deep and clinging, which has the faculty of extracting the maximum breadth and length of tone from a tense wire, to the light and feathery, such as notes might be expected to yield were the keyboard tripped over by fairy feet or brushed by butterflies' wings. His flexibility is the more amazing that the physical aspect of his fingers, which are short, thick, and blunt, affords no promise of pliancy, but rather the contrary.