CHAPTER VI.

Birth and Early Life of Chopin—­National Artists—­Chopin embodies in himself the poetic sense of his whole nation—­Opinion of Beethoven.

Chopin was born in 1810, at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw.  Unlike most other children, he could not, during his childhood, remember his own age, and the date of his birth was only fixed in his memory by a watch given him in 1820 by Madame Catalani, which bore the following inscription:  “Madame Catalani to Frederic Chopin, aged ten years.”  Perhaps the presentiments of the artist gave to the child a foresight of his future!  Nothing extraordinary marked the course of his boyhood; his internal development traversed but few phases, and gave but few manifestations.  As he was fragile and sickly, the attention of his family was concentrated upon his health.  Doubtless it was from this cause that he acquired his habits of affability, his patience under suffering, his endurance of every annoyance with a good grace; qualities which he early acquired from his wish to calm the constant anxiety that was felt with regard to him.  No precocity of his faculties, no precursory sign of remarkable development, revealed, in his early years, his future superiority of soul, mind, or capacity.  The little creature was seen suffering indeed, but always trying to smile, patient and apparently happy and his friends were so glad that he did not become moody or morose, that they were satisfied to cherish his good qualities, believing that he opened his heart to them without reserve, and gave to them all his secret thoughts.

But there are souls among us who resemble rich travelers thrown among simple herdsmen, loading them with gifts during their sojourn among them, truly not at all in proportion to their own wealth, yet which are quite sufficient to astonish the poor hosts, and to spread riches and happiness in the midst of such simple habits.  It is true that such souls give as much affection, it may be more, than those who surround them; every body is pleased with them, they are supposed to have been generous, when the truth is that in comparison with their boundless wealth they have not been liberal, and have given but little of their store of internal treasure.

The habits in which Chopin grew up, in which he was rocked as in a form-strengthening cradle, were those peculiar to calm, occupied, and tranquil characters.  These early examples of simplicity, piety, and integrity, always remained the nearest and dearest to him.  Domestic virtues, religious habits, pious charities, and rigid modesty, surrounded him from his infancy with that pure atmosphere in which his rich imagination assumed the velvety tenderness characterizing the plants which have never been exposed to the dust of the beaten highways.