revengefulness--had not altogether lost the happier features of
their original character--hospitality, patriotism, good-
naturedness, and, above all, cheerfulness and love of song and
dance. It has been said that a simple Slavonic peasant can be
enticed by his national songs from one end of the world to the
other. The delight which the Slavonic nations take in dancing
seems to be equally great. No other nation, it has been asserted,
can compare with them in ardent devotion to this amusement.
Moreover, it is noteworthy that song and dance were in Poland--as
they were of course originally everywhere--intimately united.
Heine gives a pretty description of the character of the Polish
peasant:--

It cannot be denied [he writes] that the Polish peasant has
often more head and heart than the German peasant in some
districts. Not infrequently did I find in the meanest Pole
that original wit (not Gemuthswitz, humour) which on every
occasion bubbles forth with wonderful iridescence, and that
dreamy sentimental trait, that brilliant flashing of an
Ossianic feeling for nature whose sudden outbreaks on
passionate occasions are as involuntary as the rising of the
blood into the face.

The student of human nature and its reflex in art will not call
these remarks a digression; at least, not one deserving of
censure.

We may suppose that Chopin, after his return to Warsaw and during
the following winter, and the spring and summer of 1828,
continued his studies with undiminished and, had this been