All these are things with which I have no intention to meddle.  I shall write to him from Berlin that this affair is not in my line, and that, moreover, I cannot yet form a judgment such as would be worthy of a Parisian journal, which must contain only mature and competent opinions, &c.

How much of this is self-knowledge, modesty, or disinclination, I leave the reader to decide, who, no doubt, will smile at the young man’s innocence in imagining that Parisian, or, indeed, any journals distinguish themselves generally by maturity and competence of judgment.

At the time of the Berlin visit Chopin was a lively, well-educated, and well-mannered youth, who walked through life pleased and amused with its motley garb, but as yet unconscious of the deeper truths, and the immensities of joy and sadness, of love and hate, that lie beneath.  Although the extreme youthfulness, nay boyishness, of the letters written by him at that time, and for some time after, makes him appear younger than he really was, the criticisms and witticisms on what is going on around which they contain, show incontestably that he had more than the usual share of clear and quick-sightedness.  His power of observation, however, was directed rather to dress, manners, and the peculiarities and eccentricities of outward appearance generally, than to the essentials which are not always indicated and are often hidden by them.  As to his wit, it had a decided tendency towards satire and caricature.  He notices the pleasing orderliness and cleanliness of the otherwise not well-favoured surroundings of Berlin as he approaches, considers the city itself too much extended for the number of its inhabitants, of whom it could hold twice as many, is favourably impressed by the fine large palace, the spacious well-built streets, the picturesque bridges, and congratulates himself that he and his fellow-traveller did not take lodgings in the broad but rather too quiet Franzosische Strasse.  Yes, our friend is fond of life and society.  Whether he thought man the proper study of mankind or not, as Pope held, he certainly found it the most attractive.  The passengers in the stage-coach were to him so many personages of a comedy.  There was an advocate who tried to shine with his dull jokes, an agriculturist to whom travelling had given a certain varnish of civilisation, and a German Sappho who poured forth a stream of pretentious and at the same time ludicrous complaints.  The play unwittingly performed by these unpaid actors was enjoyed by our friend with all the zest the feeling of superiority can give.  What a tragi-comical arrangement it is that in this world of ours everybody is laughing at everybody else!  The scientists of the congress afforded Chopin an almost unlimited scope for the exercise of his wit.  Among them he found so many curious and various specimens that he was induced not only to draw but also to classify them.  Having already previously sent home some