inor
study (No. 12 of Op. 10), with its passionate surging and impetuous
ejaculations. Writing from Paris on December 16, 1831, Chopin remarks,
in allusion to the traeic denouement of the Polish revolution: "All this
has caused me much pain. Who could have foreseen it!"

With his visits to Stuttgart Chopin's artist-life in Germany came to a
close, for, although he afterwards repeatedly visited the country, he
never played in public or made a lengthened stay there. Now that Chopin
is nearing Paris, where, occasional sojourns elsewhere (most of them
of short duration) excepted, he will pass the rest of his life, it may
interest the reader to learn that this change of country brought with
it also a change of name, at least as far as popular pronunciation and
spelling went. We may be sure that the Germans did not always give to
the final syllable the appropriate nasal sound. And what the Polish
pronunciation was is sufficiently indicated by the spelling "Szopen,"
frequently to be met with. I found it in the Polish illustrated journal
"Kiosy," and it is also to be seen in Joseph Sikorski's "Wspomnienie
Szopena" ("Reminiscences of Chopin"). Szulc and Karasowski call their
books and hero "Fryderyk Chopin."

CHAPTER XIII

CHOPIN'S PRODUCTIONS FROM THE SPRING OF 1829 TO THEEND OF 1831.--THE
CHIEF INFLUENCES THAT HELPED TO FORM HIS STYLE OF COMPOSITION.

Let us pause for a little in our biographical inquiries and critically
examine what Chopin had achieved as a composer since the spring of 1829.
At the very first glance it becomes evident that the works of the last
two years (1829-1831) are decidedly superior to those he wrote before
that time. And this advance was not due merely to the increased power
derived from practice; it was real growth, which a Greek philosopher
describes as penetration of nourishment into empty places, the
nourishment being in Chopin's case experience of life's joys and
sorrows. In most of the works of what I call his first period, the
composer luxuriates, as it were, in language. He does not regard it
solely or chiefly as the interpreter of thoughts and feelings, he loves
it for its own sake, just as children, small and tall, prattle for no
other reason than the pleasure of prattling. I closed the first period
when a new element entered Chopin's life and influenced his artistic
work. This element was his first love, his passion for Constantia
Gtadkowska. Thenceforth Chopin's compositions