As a specimen of the last kind may be instanced an undated anecdote told by Sikorski and others.

It is likewise illustrative of Chopin's power and love of improvisation.

The seed-corn of fact in the case seems to be that one Sunday, when playing during divine service in the Wizytek Church, Chopin, taking for his subjects some motives of the part of the Mass that had just been performed, got so absorbed in his improvisation that he entirely forgot all his surroundings, and turned a deaf ear to the priest at the altar, who had already for the second time chanted 'Per omnia saecula saeculurum.' This is a characteristic as well as a pretty artist-story, which, however, is marred, I think, by the additions of a choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently waiting priest and acolyte, &c.

Men willingly allow themselves to be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not overtaxed.

For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as the German poet says:--"So fuehrt man Absicht und man ist verstimmt." On the 6th of October, as has already been said, Chopin returned to Warsaw.