the great world of art
and fashion. But, it may be asked, did all this happen in exactly the
same way in which it is told here? Gentle reader, let us not inquire too
curiously into this matter. Of course you have heard of myth-making and
legend-making. Well, anecdote-making is a process of a similar nature, a
process of accumulation and development. The only difference between the
process in the first two cases and that in the third is, that the former
is carried on by races, the latter by individuals. A seed-corn of fact
falls on the generous soil of the poetic imagination, and forthwith it
begins to expand, to sprout, and to grow into flower, shrub, or tree.
But there are well and ill-shapen plants, and monstrosities too. The
above anecdote is a specimen of the first kind. As a specimen of the
last kind may be instanced an undated anecdote told by Sikorski and
others. It is likewise illustrative of Chopin's power and love of
improvisation. The seed-corn of fact in the case seems to be that
one Sunday, when playing during divine service in the Wizytek Church,
Chopin, taking for his subjects some motives of the part of the Mass
that had just been performed, got so absorbed in his improvisation that
he entirely forgot all his surroundings, and turned a deaf ear to the
priest at the altar, who had already for the second time chanted 'Per
omnia saecula saeculurum.' This is a characteristic as well as a pretty
artist-story, which, however, is marred, I think, by the additions of a
choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like
him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to
remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently
waiting priest and acolyte, &c. Men willingly allow themselves to
be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not
overtaxed. For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as
the German poet says:--"So fuehrt man Absicht und man ist verstimmt."

On the 6th of October, as has already been said, Chopin returned to
Warsaw. Judging from a letter written by him at the end of the year
(December 27, 1828) to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, he was busy
composing and going to parties. The "Rondeau a la Krakowiak," Op. 14,
was now finished, and the Trio, Op. 8, was nearly so. A day on which he
had not been musically productive seems to have been regarded by him as
a lost day. The opening phrase of the following quot