h, it supplicates the Supreme Judge with prayers so poignant,
that our hearts, in listening, break under the weight of an august
compassion! It would be a mistake to suppose that all the compositions
of Chopin are deprived of the feelings which he has deemed best to
suppress in this great work. Not so. Perhaps human nature is not capable
of maintaining always this mood of energetic abnegation, of courageous
submission. We meet with breathings of stifled rage, of suppressed
anger, in many passages of his writings: and many of his Studies, as
well as his Scherzos, depict a concentrated exasperation and despair,
which are sometimes manifested in bitter irony, sometimes in intolerant
hauteur. These dark apostrophes of his muse have attracted less
attention, have been less fully understood, than his poems of more
tender coloring. The personal character of Chopin had something to
do with this general misconception. Kind, courteous, and affable, of
tranquil and almost joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret
convulsions which agitated him to be even suspected.

His character was indeed not easily understood. A thousand subtle
shades, mingling, crossing, contradicting and disguising each other,
rendered it almost undecipherable at a first view. As is usually the
case with the Sclaves, it was difficult to read the recesses of
his mind. With them, loyalty and candor, familiarity and the most
captivating ease of manner, by no means imply confidence, or impulsive
frankness. Like the twisted folds of a serpent rolled upon itself, their
feelings are half hidden, half revealed. It requires a most attentive
examination to follow the coiled linking of the glittering rings. It
would be naive to interpret literally their courtesy full of compliment,
their assumed humility. The forms of this politeness, this modesty, have
their solution in their manners, in which their ancient connection with
the East may be strangely traced. Without having in the least degree
acquired the taciturnity of the Mussulman, they have yet learned from
it a distrustful reserve upon all subjects which touch upon the
more delicate and personal chords of the heart. When they speak
of themselves, we may almost always be certain that they keep some
concealment in reserve, which assures them the advantage in intellect,
or feeling. They suffer their interrogator to remain in ignorance of
some circumstance, some mobile secret, through the unveiling of which
they wo