The supposed poverty of Chopin's parents has given rise to all sorts of misconceptions and misstatements.

A writer in Larousse's "Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siecle" even builds on it a theory explanatory of the character of Chopin and his music: "Sa famille d'origine francaise," he writes, "jouissait d'une mediocre fortune; de la, peut-etre, certains froissements dans l'organisation nerveuse et la vive sensibilite de l'enfant, sentiments qui devaient plus tard se refleter dans ses oeuvres, empreintes generalement d'une profonde melancolie." If the writer of the article in question had gone a little farther back, he might have found a sounder basis for his theory in the extremely delicate physical organisation of the man, whose sensitiveness was so acute that in early infancy he could not hear music without crying, and resisted almost all attempts at appeasing him.
The last-mentioned fact, curious and really noteworthy in itself, acquires a certain preciousness by its being the only one transmitted to us of that period of Chopin's existence.

But this scantiness of information need not cause us much regret.

During the first years of a man's life biography is chiefly concerned with his surroundings, with the agencies that train his faculties and mould his character.

A man's acts and opinions are interesting in proportion to the degree of consolidation attained by his individuality.