The last dictum and part of the last but one were already quoted by me in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completeness, and also because they form an excellent starting-point for the following additional remarks on Chopin’s friendships, I have repeated them here.  First of all, I venture to make the sweeping assertion that Chopin had among his non-Polish friends none who could be called intimate in the fullest sense of the word, none to whom he unbosomed himself as he did to Woyciechowski and Matuszynski, the friends of his youth, and Grzymala, a friend of a later time.  Long cessation of personal intercourse together with the diverging development of their characters in totally unlike conditions of life cannot but have diminished the intimacy with the first named. [Footnote:  Titus Woyciechowski continued to live on his estate Poturzyn, in the kingdom of Poland.] With Matuszyriski Chopin remained in close connection till this friend’s death. [Footnote:  Karasowski says in the first volume of his Polish biography of Chopin that Matuszynski died on April 20, 1842; and in the second that he died after Chopin’s father, but in the same year—­that is, in 1844.] How he opened his whole heart to Grzymala we shall see in a subsequent chapter.  That his friendship with Fontana was of a less intimate character becomes at once apparent on comparing Chopin’s letters to him with those he wrote to the three other Polish friends.  Of all his connections with non-Poles there seems to be only one which really deserves the name of friendship, and that is his connection with Franchomme.  Even here, however, he gave much less than he received.  Indeed, we may say—­speaking generally, and not only with a view to Franchomme—­that Chopin was more loved than loving.  But he knew well how to conceal his deficiencies in this respect under the blandness of his manners and the coaxing affectionateness of his language.  There is something really tragic, and comic too, in the fact that every friend of Chopin’s thought that he had more of the composer’s love and confidence than any other friend.  Thus, for instance, while Gutmann told me that Franchomme was not so intimate with Chopin that the latter would confide any secrets to him, Franchomme made to me a similar statement with regard to Gutmann.  And so we find every friend of Chopin declaring that every other friend was not so much of a friend as himself.  Of Chopin’s procedures in friendship much may be learned from his letters; in them is to be seen something of his insinuating, cajoling ways, of his endeavours to make the person addressed believe himself a privileged favourite, and of his habit of speaking not only ungenerously and unlovingly, but even unjustly of other persons with whom he was apparently on cordial terms.  In fact, it is only too clear that Chopin spoke differently before the faces and behind the backs of people.  You remember how in his letters to Fontana he abuses Camille Pleyel in a manner irreconcilable with genuine love and esteem.  Well, to this same Camille Pleyel, of whom he thus falls foul when he thinks himself in the slightest aggrieved, he addresses on one occasion the following note.  Mark the last sentence:—­