cements
of accents and numerous misspellings, such as trouvais
instead of trouve, engresse instead of engraisse, plonge
instead of plonger. Of course, these mistakes have to be
ascribed to negligence not to ignorance. I must mention yet
another point which the English translation does not bring
out--namely, that in addressing Franchomme Chopin makes use
of the familiar form of the second person singular.]

The last-quoted letter adds a few more touches to the portraiture
of Chopin which has been in progress in the preceding pages. The
insinuating affectionateness and winning playfulness had hitherto not
been brought out so distinctly. There was then, and there remained to
the end of his life, something of a woman and of a boy in this man. The
sentimental element is almost wholly absent from Chopin's letters to his
non-Polish friends. Even to Franchomme, the most intimate among these,
he shows not only less of his inmost feelings and thoughts than to Titus
Woyciechowski and John Matuszyriski, the friends of his youth, but also
less than to others of his countrymen whose acquaintance he made
later in life, and of whom Grzymala may be instanced. Ready to give
everything, says Liszt, Chopin did not give himself--

his most intimate acquaintances did not penetrate into the
sacred recess where, apart from the rest of his life, dwelt
the secret spring of his soul: a recess so well concealed
that one hardly suspected its existence.

Indeed, you could as little get hold of Chopin as, to use L. Enault's
expression, of the scaly back of a siren. Only after reading his letters
to the few confidants to whom he freely gave his whole self do we know
how little of himself he gave to the generality of his friends, whom he
pays off with affectionateness and playfulness, and who, perhaps, never
suspected, or only suspected, what lay beneath that smooth surface.
This kind of reserve is a feature of the Slavonic character, which in
Chopin's individuality was unusually developed.

The Slavonians [says Enault pithily] lend themselves, they do
not give themselves; and, as if Chopin had wished to make his
country-men pardon him the French origin of his family, he
showed himself more Polish than Poland.

Liszt makes some very interesting remarks on this point, and as they
throw much light on the character of the race, and on that of the
individual with whom we are especially concerned in this bo