The upshot of the discussions was the project of excursions to Berlin and Vienna.

As, however, this plan was not realised till the autumn of 1828, and no noteworthy incidents or interesting particulars concerning the intervening period of his life have become known, I shall utilise this break in the narrative by trying my hand at a slight sketch of that terra incognita, the history of music in Poland, more particularly the history of the musical life in Warsaw, shortly before and in Chopin's time.

I am induced to undertake this task by the consideration that a knowledge of the means of culture within the reach of Chopin during his residence in the Polish capital is indispensable if we wish to form a clear and complete idea of the artist's development, and that such a knowledge will at the same time help us to understand better the contents of some of the subsequent portions of this work.

Before, however, I begin a new chapter and with it the above-mentioned sketch, I should like to advert to a few other matters.
The reader may perhaps already have asked the question--What was Chopin like in his outward appearance?
As I have seen a daguerreotype from a picture painted when he was seventeen, I can give some sort of answer to this question.

Chopin's face was clearly and finely cut, especially the nose with its wide nostrils; the forehead was high, the eyebrows delicate, the lips thin, and the lower one somewhat protruding.