otions of the
mind burst out before they are considered. In the tumult of
business, interest and passion have their genuine effect; but
a friendly letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the
cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no
man sits down by design to depreciate his own character.
Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom
can a man so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by
him whose kindness he desires to gain or keep?

These one-sided statements are open to much criticism, and would make an
excellent theme for an essay. Here, however, we must content ourselves
with simply pointing out that letters are not always calm and deliberate
performances, but exhibit often the eagerness of conversation and the
impulsiveness of passion. In Chopin's correspondence we find this not
unfrequently exemplified. But to see it we must not turn to the letters
addressed to his parents, to his master, and to his acquaintances--there
we find little of the real man and his deeper feelings--but to those
addressed to his bosom-friends, and among them there are none in which
he shows himself more openly than in the two which he wrote on December
25, 1830, and January 1, 1831, to John Matuszynski. These letters are,
indeed, such wonderful revelations of their writer's character that
I should fail in my duty as his biographer were I to neglect to place
before the reader copious extracts from them, in short, all those
passages which throw light on the inner working of this interesting
personality.

Dec. 25, 1830.--I longed indescribably for your letter; you
know why. How happy news of my angel of peace always makes
me! How I should like to touch all the strings which not only
call up stormy feelings, but also awaken again the songs
whose half-dying echo is still flitting on the banks of the
Danube-songs which the warriors of King John Sobieski sang!

You advised me to choose a poet. But you know I am an
undecided being, and succeeded only once in my life in making
a good choice.

The many dinners, soirees, concerts, and balls which I have
to go to only bore me. I am sad, and feel so lonely and
forsaken here. But I cannot live as I would! I must dress,
appear with a cheerful countenance in the salons; but when I
am again in my room I give vent to my feelings on the piano,
to which, as my best friend in Vienna, I dis