He played it _con amore_, and it grew to be part of himself as no other of his works ever did.

Technically, it was never hard for him, whereas he found the "Eroica" exhausting, physically and mentally.
Of the smaller works he preferred the "Sea Pieces," as a whole, above all the others; yet there were single things in each of the other sets for which he cared perhaps as much.

Of the "Sea Pieces" those he liked best were: "To the Sea," "From the Depths," "In Mid-Ocean"; of the "Fireside Tales": the "Haunted House," "Salamander," "'Brer Rabbit"; and he had a tender feeling for "In a German Forest," which always seemed to bring back the Frankfort days to his memory.

Of the "New England Idyls," his favorites were: "In Deep Woods," "Mid-Winter," "From a Log Cabin." In his composition he was growing away from piano work,--he felt that the future must mean larger, probably orchestral, forms, for him, and his dream of an ultimate leisure was a dream for which his friends can be thankful.

He did not end with despair at his heart that the distracting work, the yearly drudgery, were to go on forever.
His preferences in music were governed by the independence which characterised his intellectual judgments.