One of the most characteristic features in the portrait of Chopin, drawn by the master-hand of Franz Liszt, is the Polish composer's unconquerable aversion to correspondence. “It was curious,” Liszt says, “to see him resort to all kinds of expedients to escape the necessity of tracing the most insignificant note. Many a time he traversed Paris from one end to the other to decline an invitation to dinner or to give some trivial information, rather than write a few lines.… His handwriting was quite unknown to most of his friends.” The members of his family in Warsaw, and a few of his beautiful countrywomen, were almost the only persons in whose favour Chopin departed from this rule. In consequence mainly of this reticence, almost nothing had till lately transpired of the inner life of one of the most subjective of composers. Even the authentic data of his external career were scanty and difficult of access, being mostly contained in works by Polish writers and in the Polish language. Liszt in the brochure already alluded to gives few facts, and those chiefly gleaned from his own personal intercourse with Chopin in Paris; the composer's earlier life, before he left his country, was covered by all but utter darkness.

Considerable expectation, therefore, was roused some weeks ago by the announcement of a new Life of Chopin written in German by a Pole, M. Karasowski, and founded chiefly on Chopin's letters to his family.