found there—­the absence of the privations and hardships of poverty, with their depressing and often demoralising influence—­have already been adverted to; now I must say a few words about the positive advantages with which he was favoured.  And it may be at once stated that they cannot be estimated too highly.  Frederick enjoyed the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon mortal man—­viz., that of being born into a virtuous and well-educated family united by the ties of love.  I call it the greatest of blessings, because neither catechism and sermons nor schools and colleges can take the place,, or compensate for the want, of this education that does not stop at the outside, but by its subtle, continuous action penetrates to the very heart’s core and pervades the whole being.  The atmosphere in which Frederick lived was not only moral and social, but also distinctly intellectual.

The father, Nicholas Chopin, seems to have been a man of worth and culture, honest of purpose, charitable in judgment, attentive to duty, and endowed with a good share of prudence and commonsense.  In support of this characterisation may be advanced that among his friends he counted many men of distinction in literature, science, and art; that between him and the parents of his pupils as well as the pupils themselves there existed a friendly relation; that he was on intimate terms with several of his colleagues; and that his children not only loved, but also respected him.  No one who reads his son’s letters, which indeed give us some striking glimpses of the man, can fail to notice this last point.  On one occasion, when confessing that he had gone to a certain dinner two hours later than he had been asked, Frederick foresees his father’s anger at the disregard for what is owing to others, and especially to one’s elders; and on another occasion he makes excuses for his indifference to non-musical matters, which, he thinks, his father will blame.  And mark, these letters were written after Chopin had attained manhood.  What testifies to Nicholas Chopin’s, abilities as a teacher and steadiness as a man, is the unshaken confidence of the government:  he continued in his position at the Lyceumtill after the revolution in 1831, when this institution, like many others, was closed; he was then appointed a member of the board for the examination of candidates for situations as schoolmasters, and somewhat later he became professor of the French language at the Academy of the Roman Catholic Clergy.

It is more difficult, or rather it is impossible, to form anything like a clear picture of his wife, Justina Chopin.  None of those of her son’s letters that are preserved is addressed to her, and in those addressed to the members of the family conjointly, or to friends, nothing occurs that brings her nearer to us, or gives a clue to her character.  George Sand said that she was Chopin’s only passion.  Karasowski describes her as “particularly tender-hearted