est Chopin
came nearer and nearer the keyboard and listened to the fine,
poetic playing of the young Bohemian; his pale features grew
animated, and by mien and gesture he showed to all who were
present his lively approbation. When Schulhoff had finished,
Chopin held out his hand to him with the words: "Vous etes un
vrai artiste, un collegue!" Some days after Schulhoff paid the
revered master a visit, and asked him to accept the dedication
of the composition he had played to him. Chopin thanked him in
a heart-winning manner, and said in the presence of several
ladies: "Je suis tres flatte de l'honneur que vous me faites."

The behaviour of Chopin during the latter part of this transaction made,
no doubt, amends for that of the earlier. But the ungracious manner
in which he granted the young musician permission to play to him, and
especially his turning his back to Schulhoff when the latter began
to play, are not excused by the fact that he was often bothered by
dilettante tormentors.

The Paris correspondent of the Musical World, writing immediately after
the death of the composer, describes the feeling which existed among the
musicians in the French capital, and also suggests an explanation and
excuse. In the number of the paper bearing date November 10, 1849, we
read as follows:--

Owing to his retired way of living and his habitual reserve,
Chopin had few friends in the profession; and, indeed, spoiled
from his original nature by the caprice of society, he was too
apt to treat his brother-artists with a supercilious hauteur,
which many, his equals, and a few, his superiors, were wont to
stigmatise as insulting. But from want of sympathy with the
man, they overlooked the fact that a pulmonary complaint,
which for years had been gradually wasting him to a shadow,
rendered him little fit for the enjoyments of society and the
relaxations of artistic conviviality. In short, Chopin, in
self-defence, was compelled to live in comparative seclusion,
but we wholly disbelieve that this isolation had its source in
unkindness or egotism. We are the more inclined to this
opinion by the fact that the intimate friends whom he
possessed in the profession (and some of them were pianists)
were as devotedly attached to him as the most romantic of his
aristocratic worshippers.

The reasoning does not seem to me quite conclusive. Would it not have
been possible to live in retirem