rederick found there--the absence of the
privations and hardships of poverty, with their depressing and often
demoralising influence--have already been adverted to; now I must say a
few words about the positive advantages with which he was favoured.
And it may be at once stated that they cannot be estimated too highly.
Frederick enjoyed the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon
mortal man--viz., that of being born into a virtuous and well-educated
family united by the ties of love. I call it the greatest of blessings,
because neither catechism and sermons nor schools and colleges can take
the place,, or compensate for the want, of this education that does not
stop at the outside, but by its subtle, continuous action penetrates to
the very heart's core and pervades the whole being. The atmosphere in
which Frederick lived was not only moral and social, but also distinctly
intellectual.

The father, Nicholas Chopin, seems to have been a man of worth and
culture, honest of purpose, charitable in judgment, attentive to duty,
and endowed with a good share of prudence and commonsense. In support of
this characterisation may be advanced that among his friends he counted
many men of distinction in literature, science, and art; that between
him and the parents of his pupils as well as the pupils themselves there
existed a friendly relation; that he was on intimate terms with several
of his colleagues; and that his children not only loved, but also
respected him. No one who reads his son's letters, which indeed give us
some striking glimpses of the man, can fail to notice this last point.
On one occasion, when confessing that he had gone to a certain dinner
two hours later than he had been asked, Frederick foresees his father's
anger at the disregard for what is owing to others, and especially
to one's elders; and on another occasion he makes excuses for his
indifference to non-musical matters, which, he thinks, his father will
blame. And mark, these letters were written after Chopin had attained
manhood. What testifies to Nicholas Chopin's, abilities as a teacher and
steadiness as a man, is the unshaken confidence of the government: he
continued in his position at the Lyceumtill after the revolution in
1831, when this institution, like many others, was closed; he was then
appointed a member of the board for the examination of candidates for
situations as schoolmasters, and somewhat later he became professor of
the Frenc