nd Mickiewicz in the midst of a very excited discussion. The poet urged
the composer to undertake a great work, and not to fritter away his
power on trifles; the composer, on the other hand, maintained that he
was not in possession of the qualities requisite for what he was advised
to undertake. G. Mathias, who studied under Chopin from 1839 to 1844,
remembers a conversation between his master and M. le Comte de Perthuis,
one of Louis Philippe's aides-de-camp. The Count said--

"Chopin, how is it that you, who have such admirable ideas,
do not compose an opera?" [Chopin, avec vos idees admirables,
pourquoi ne nous faites-vous pas un opera?] "Ah, Count, let
me compose nothing but music for the pianoforte; I am not
learned enough to compose operas!" [Ah, Monsieur le Comte,
laissez-moi ne faire que de la musique de piano; pour faire
des operas je ne suis pas assez savant.]

Chopin, in fact, knew himself better than his friends and teacher knew
him, and it was well for him and it is well for us that he did, for
thereby he saved himself much heart-burning and disappointment, and us
the loss of a rich inheritance of charming and inimitable pianoforte
music. He was emphatically a Kleinmeister--i.e. a master of works of
small size and minute execution. His attempts in the sonata-form were
failures, although failures worth more--some of them at least--than
many a clever artist's most brilliant successes. Had he attempted the
dramatic form the result would in all probability have been still less
happy; for this form demands not only a vigorous constructive power,
but in addition to it a firm grasp of all the vocal and instrumental
resources--qualities, in short, in which Chopin was undeniably
deficient, owing not so much to inadequate training as to the nature
of his organisation. Moreover, he was too much given to express his
own emotions, too narrow in his sympathies, in short, too individual a
composer, to successfully express the emotions of others, to objectively
conceive and set forth the characters of men and women unlike himself.
Still, the master's confidence in his pupil, though unfounded in this
particular, is beautiful to contemplate; and so also is his affection
for him, which even the pedantic style of his letters cannot altogether
hide. Nor is it possible to admire in a less degree the reciprocation of
these sentiments by the great master's greater pupil:--

What a pity it is [are the conc