realised till the autumn of 1828, and
no noteworthy incidents or interesting particulars concerning the
intervening period of his life have become known, I shall utilise this
break in the narrative by trying my hand at a slight sketch of that
terra incognita, the history of music in Poland, more particularly the
history of the musical life in Warsaw, shortly before and in Chopin's
time. I am induced to undertake this task by the consideration that a
knowledge of the means of culture within the reach of Chopin during his
residence in the Polish capital is indispensable if we wish to form a
clear and complete idea of the artist's development, and that such
a knowledge will at the same time help us to understand better the
contents of some of the subsequent portions of this work. Before,
however, I begin a new chapter and with it the above-mentioned sketch, I
should like to advert to a few other matters.

The reader may perhaps already have asked the question--What was Chopin
like in his outward appearance? As I have seen a daguerreotype from a
picture painted when he was seventeen, I can give some sort of answer to
this question. Chopin's face was clearly and finely cut, especially
the nose with its wide nostrils; the forehead was high, the eyebrows
delicate, the lips thin, and the lower one somewhat protruding. For
those who know A. Bovy's medallion I may add that the early portrait is
very like it; only, in the latter, the line formed by the lower jawbone
that runs from the chin towards the ear is more rounded, and the whole
has a more youthful appearance. As to the expression, it is not only
meditative but even melancholy. This last point leads me naturally to
another question. The delicate build of Chopin's body, his early death
preceded by many years of ill-health, and the character of his music,
have led people into the belief that from childhood he was always sickly
in body, and for the most part also melancholy in disposition. But as
the poverty and melancholy, so also disappears on closer investigation
the sickliness of the child and youth. To jump, however, from this to
the other extreme, and assert that he enjoyed vigorous health, would be
as great a mistake. Karasowski, in his eagerness to controvert Liszt,
although not going quite this length, nevertheless overshoots the mark.
Besides it is a misrepresentation of Liszt not to say that the passage
excerpted from his book, and condemned as not being in accordanc