rences
given to his pupils, and in the frequent and great services which he
rendered to his compatriots; but we cannot remember that he took any
pleasure in the expression of this feeling. If he sometimes entered
upon the topic of politics, so vividly attacked, so warmly defended,
so frequently discussed in Prance, it was rather to point out what he
deemed dangerous or erroneous in the opinions advanced by others than to
win attention for his own. In constant connection with some of the most
brilliant politicians of the day, he knew how to limit the relations
between them to a personal attachment entirely independent of political
interests.

Democracy presented to his view an agglomeration of elements too
heterogeneous, too restless, wielding too much savage power, to win
his sympathies. The entrance of social and political questions into the
arena of popular discussion was compared, more than twenty years ago,
to a new and bold incursion of barbarians. Chopin was peculiarly and
painfully struck by the terror which this comparison awakened. He
despaired of obtaining the safety of Rome from these modern Attilas,
he feared the destruction of art, its monuments, its refinements, its
civilization; in a word, he dreaded the loss of the elegant, cultivated
if somewhat indolent ease described by Horace. Would the graceful
elegancies of life, the high culture of the arts, indeed be safe in
the rude and devastating hands of the new barbarians? He followed at a
distance the progress of events, and an acuteness of perception, which
he would scarcely have been supposed to possess, often enabled him
to predict occurrences which were not anticipated even by the best
informed. But though such observations escaped him, he never developed
them. His concise remarks attracted no attention until time proved their
truth. His good sense, full of acuteness, had early persuaded him of
the perfect vacuity of the greater part of political orations, of
theological discussions, of philosophic digressions. He began early to
practice the favorite maxim of a man of great distinction, whom we have
often heard repeat a remark dictated by the misanthropic wisdom of age,
which was then startling to our inexperienced impetuosity, but which
has since frequently struck us by its melancholy truth: "You will be
persuaded one day as I am," (said the Marquis de Noailles to the young
people whom he honored with his attention, and who were becoming heated
in som