and aggrieved lover as black as possible.  Chopin may have indulged in innumerable amorous fancies, but the story of his life furnishes at least one instance of his having loved faithfully as well as deeply.  Nor will it be denied that Chopin’s love for Constantia Gladkowska was a serious affair, whether the fatal end be attributable to him or her, or both.  And now I have to give an account of another love-affair which deserves likewise the epithet “serious.”

As a boy Chopin contracted a friendship with the brothers Wodzinski, who were boarders at his father’s establishment.  With them he went repeatedly to Sluzewo, the property of their father, and thus became also acquainted with the rest of the family.  The nature of the relation in which Chopin and they stood to each other is shown by a letter written by the former on July 18, 1834, to one of the brothers who with his mother and other members of the family was at that time staying at Geneva, whither they had gone after the Polish revolution of 1830-31, in which the three brothers—­Anthony, Casimir, and Felix—­had taken part:- -

My dear Felix,—­Very likely you thought “Fred must be moping that he does not answer my letter!” But you will remember that it was always my habit to do everything too late.  Thus I went also too late to Miss Fanche, and consequently was obliged to wait till honest Wolf had departed.  Were it not that I have only recently come back from the banks of the Rhine and have an engagement from which I cannot free myself just now, I would immediately set out for Geneva to thank your esteemed mamma and at the same time accept her kind invitation.  But cruel fate—­in one word, it cannot be done.  Your sister was so good as to send me her composition.  It gives me the greatest pleasure, and happening to improvise the veryevening of its arrival in one of our salons, I took for my subject the pretty theme by a certain Maria with whom in times gone by I played at hide and seek in the house of Mr. Pszenny...To-day!  Je prends la liberte d’envoyer a mon estimable collegue Mile Marie une petite valse que je viens de publier.  May it afford her a hundredth part of the pleasure which I felt on receiving her variations.  In conclusion, I once more thank your mamma most sincerely for kindly remembering her old and faithful servant in whose veins also there run some drops of Cujavian blood. [Footnote:  Cujavia is the name of a Polish district.]

   F. Chopin.

P.S.—­Embrace Anthony, stifle Casimir with caresses if you can. as for Miss Maria make her a graceful and respectful bow.  Be surprised and say in a whisper, “Dear me, how tall she has grown!”

The Wodzinskis, with the exception of Anthony, returned in the summer of 1835 to Poland, making on their way thither a stay at Dresden.  Anthony, who was then in Paris and in constant intercourse with Chopin, kept the latter informed of his people’s movements