Perhaps human nature is not capable of maintaining always this mood of energetic abnegation, of courageous submission.

We meet with breathings of stifled rage, of suppressed anger, in many passages of his writings: and many of his Studies, as well as his Scherzos, depict a concentrated exasperation and despair, which are sometimes manifested in bitter irony, sometimes in intolerant hauteur.

These dark apostrophes of his muse have attracted less attention, have been less fully understood, than his poems of more tender coloring.

The personal character of Chopin had something to do with this general misconception.

Kind, courteous, and affable, of tranquil and almost joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which agitated him to be even suspected.
His character was indeed not easily understood.