dge entirely failed
to implant in him the dispositions of a scholar or thinker. His nature
was perhaps a soil unfavourable to such growths, and certainly already
preoccupied by a vegetation the luxuriance of which excluded, dwarfed,
or crushed everything else. The truth of these remarks is proved
by Chopin's letters and his friends' accounts of his tastes and
conversation. In connection with this I may quote a passage from a
letter which Chopin wrote immediately before starting on his Berlin
trip. Jedrzejewicz, a gentleman who by-and-by became Chopin's
brother-in-law, and was just then staying in Paris, made there the
acquaintance of the Polish musician Sowinski. The latter hearing thus of
his talented countryman in Warsaw, and being co-editor with Fetis of the
"Revue musicale" (so at least we read in the letter in question, but
it is more likely that Sowinski was simply a contributor to the paper),
applied to him for a description of the state of music in Poland, and
biographical notes on the most celebrated executants and composers. Now
let us see what Chopin says in reference to this request.

All these are things with which I have no intention to
meddle. I shall write to him from Berlin that this affair is
not in my line, and that, moreover, I cannot yet form a
judgment such as would be worthy of a Parisian journal, which
must contain only mature and competent opinions, &c.

How much of this is self-knowledge, modesty, or disinclination, I leave
the reader to decide, who, no doubt, will smile at the young man's
innocence in imagining that Parisian, or, indeed, any journals
distinguish themselves generally by maturity and competence of judgment.

At the time of the Berlin visit Chopin was a lively, well-educated, and
well-mannered youth, who walked through life pleased and amused with
its motley garb, but as yet unconscious of the deeper truths, and the
immensities of joy and sadness, of love and hate, that lie beneath.
Although the extreme youthfulness, nay boyishness, of the letters
written by him at that time, and for some time after, makes him appear
younger than he really was, the criticisms and witticisms on what is
going on around which they contain, show incontestably that he had
more than the usual share of clear and quick-sightedness. His power of
observation, however, was directed rather to dress, manners, and the
peculiarities and eccentricities of outward appearance generally, than
to t