These and others, although to us only names, or little more, are nevertheless not without their significance.

We may liken them to the supernumeraries on the stage, who, dumb as they are, help to set off and show the position of the principal figure or figures.
The love of literature which we have noticed in the young Chopins, more particularly in the sisters, implanted by an excellent education and fostered by the taste, habits, and encouragement of their father, cannot but have been greatly influenced and strengthened by the characters and conversation of such visitors.

And let it not be overlooked that this was the time of Poland's intellectual renascence--a time when the influence of man over man is greater than at other times, he being, as it were, charged with a kind of vivifying electricity.

The misfortunes that had passed over Poland had purified and fortified the nation--breathed into it a new and healthier life.

The change which the country underwent from the middle of the eighteenth to the earlier part of the nineteenth century was indeed immense.