The thorough training which he received in general knowledge entirely failed to implant in him the dispositions of a scholar or thinker.

His nature was perhaps a soil unfavourable to such growths, and certainly already preoccupied by a vegetation the luxuriance of which excluded, dwarfed, or crushed everything else.

The truth of these remarks is proved by Chopin's letters and his friends' accounts of his tastes and conversation.

In connection with this I may quote a passage from a letter which Chopin wrote immediately before starting on his Berlin trip.

Jedrzejewicz, a gentleman who by-and-by became Chopin's brother-in-law, and was just then staying in Paris, made there the acquaintance of the Polish musician Sowinski.