pronouncing judgment because the complete evidence did not seem to me to warrant my doing so.”  This is positively delicious.  When I met this biographer at Bayreuth in 1896, I told him how much I had enjoyed his work, adding that I found it indispensable in the re-construction of Chopin.  Professor Niecks gazed at me blandly—­he is most amiable and scholarly-looking—­and remarked, “You are not the only one.”  He was probably thinking of the many who have had recourse to his human documents of Chopin.  But Niecks, in 1888, built on Karasowski, Liszt, Schumann, Sand and others, so the process is bound to continue.  Since 1888 much has been written of Chopin, much surmised.

With Matuszysnki the composer was happier.  He devoutly loved his country and despite his sarcasm was fond of his countrymen.  Never an extravagant man, he invariably assisted the Poles.  After 1834- 5, Chopin’s activity as a public pianist began to wane.  He was not always understood and was not so warmly welcomed as he deserved to be; on one occasion when he played the Larghetto of his F minor concerto in a Conservatoire concert, its frigid reception annoyed him very much.  Nevertheless he appeared at a benefit concert at Habeneck’s, April 26, 1835.  The papers praised, but his irritability increased with every public performance.  About this time he became acquainted with Bellini, for whose sensuous melodies he had a peculiar predilection.

In July, 1835, Chopin met his father at Carlsbad.  Then he went to Dresden and later to Leipzig, playing privately for Schumann, Clara Wieck, Wenzel and Mendelssohn.  Schumann gushes over Chopin, but this friendliness was never reciprocated.  On his return to Paris Chopin visited Heidelberg, where he saw the father of his pupil, Adolphe Gutmann, and reached the capital of the civilized world the middle of October.

Meanwhile a love affair had occupied his attention in Dresden.  In September, 1835, Chopin met his old school friends, the Wodzinskis, former pupils at his father’s school.  He fell in love with their sister Marie and they became engaged.  He spoke to his father about the matter, and for the time Paris and his ambitions were forgotten.  He enjoyed a brief dream of marrying and of settling near Warsaw, teaching and composing—­the occasional dream that tempts most active artists, soothing them with the notion that there is really a haven of rest from the world’s buffets.  Again the gods intervened in the interest of music.  The father of the girl objected on the score of Chopin’s means and his social position—­artists were not Paderewskis in those days—­ although the mother favored the romance.  The Wodzinskis were noble and wealthy.  In the summer of 1836, at Marienbad, Chopin met Marie again.  In 1837, the engagement was broken and the following year the inconstant beauty married the son of Chopin’s godfather, Count Frederic Skarbek.  As the marriage did not prove a success—­perhaps the lady played too much Chopin—­a divorce ensued