ssons of great value. Elsner saw
the material he had to mould, and so deftly did he teach that his
pupil's individuality was never checked, never warped. For Elsner
Chopin entertained love and reverence; to him he wrote from Paris
asking his advice in the matter of studying with Kalkbrenner, and this
advice he took seriously. "From Zwyny and Elsner even the greatest ass
must learn something," he is quoted as having said.

Then there are the usual anecdotes--one is tempted to call them the
stock stories of the boyhood of any great composer. In infancy Chopin
could not hear music without crying. Mozart was morbidly sensitive to
the tones of a trumpet. Later the Polish lad sported familiarly with
his talents, for he is related to have sent to sleep and awakened a
party of unruly boys at his father's school. Another story is his
fooling of a Jew merchant. He had high spirits, perhaps too high, for
his slender physique. He was a facile mimic, and Liszt, Balzac, Bocage,
Sand and others believed that he would have made an actor of ability.
With his sister Emilia he wrote a little comedy. Altogether he was a
clever, if not a brilliant lad. His letters show that he was not the
latter, for while they are lively they do not reveal much literary
ability. But their writer saw with open eyes, eyes that were disposed
to caricature the peculiarities of others. This trait, much clarified
and spiritualized in later life, became a distinct, ironic note in his
character. Possibly it attracted Heine, although his irony was on a
more intellectual plane.

His piano playing at this time was neat and finished, and he had
already begun those experimentings in technique and tone that afterward
revolutionized the world of music and the keyboard. He being sickly and
his sister's health poor, the pair was sent in 1826 to Reinerz, a
watering place in Prussian Silesia. This with a visit to his godmother,
a titled lady named Wiesiolowska and a sister of Count Frederic
Skarbek,--the name does not tally with the one given heretofore, as
noted by Janotha,--consumed this year. In 1827 he left his regular
studies at the Lyceum and devoted his time to music. He was much in the
country, listening to the fiddling and singing of the peasants, thus
laying the corner stone of his art as a national composer. In the fall
of 1828 he went to Berlin, and this trip gave him a foretaste of the
outer world.

Stephen Heller, who saw Chopin in 1830, described him as pal