e, one may occupy one's self simultaneously with some
kind of reading(!).

He feared above all [remarked Madame Dubois to me] the
abrutissement of the pupils. One day he heard me say that I
practised six hours a day. He became quite angry, and forbade
me to practise more than three hours. This was also the advice
of Hummel in his pianoforte school.

To resume Mikuli's narrative:--

Chopin treated very thoroughly the different kinds of touch,
especially the full-toned [tonvolle] legato.

[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says that Chopin demanded absolutely
from his pupils that they should practise the exercises, and
especially the scales in major and minor, from piano to
fortissimo, staccato as well as legato, and also with a change
of accent, which was to be now on the second, now on the
third, now on the fourth note. Madame Dubois, on the other
hand, is sure she was never told by her master to play the
scales staccato.]

"As gymnastic helps he recommended the bending inward and
outward of the wrist, the repeated touch from the wrist, the
extending of the fingers, but all this with the earnest
warning against over-fatigue. He made his pupils play the
scales with a full tone, as connectedly as possible, very
slowly and only gradually advancing to a quicker TEMPO, and
with metronomic evenness. The passing of the thumb under the
other fingers and the passing of the latter over the former
was to be facilitated by a corresponding turning inward of the
hand. The scales with many black keys (B, F sharp, and D flat)
were first studied, and last, as the most difficult, C major.
In the same sequence he took up Clementi's Preludes et
Exercices, a work which for its utility he esteemed very
highly."

[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski writes that whatever the degree of
instruction was which Chopin's pupils brought with them, they
had all to play carefully besides the scales the second book
of Clementi's Preludes et Exercices, especially the first in A
flat major.]

According to Chopin the evenness of the scales (also of the
arpeggios) not merely depended on the utmost equal
strengthening of all fingers by means of five-finger exercises
and on a thumb entirely free at the passing under and over,
but rather on a lateral movement (with the elbow hanging quite
down and always easy) of the hand, not by jerks, but
continuously and evenly flowing, which he tried to i