the government: he continued in his position at the Lyceumtill
after the revolution in 1831, when this institution, like many
others, was closed; he was then appointed a member of the board
for the examination of candidates for situations as
schoolmasters, and somewhat later he became professor of the
French language at the Academy of the Roman Catholic Clergy.

It is more difficult, or rather it is impossible, to form
anything like a clear picture of his wife, Justina Chopin. None
of those of her son's letters that are preserved is addressed to
her, and in those addressed to the members of the family
conjointly, or to friends, nothing occurs that brings her nearer
to us, or gives a clue to her character. George Sand said that
she was Chopin's only passion. Karasowski describes her as
"particularly tender-hearted and rich in all the truly womanly
virtues.....For her quietness and homeliness were the greatest
happiness." K. W. Wojcicki, in "Cmentarz Powazkowski" (Powazki
Cemetery), expresses, himself in the same strain. A Scotch lady,
who had seen Justina Chopin in her old age, and conversed with
her in French, told me that she was then "a neat, quiet,
intelligent old lady, whose activeness contrasted strongly with
the languor of her son, who had not a shadow of energy in him."
With regard to the latter part of this account, we must not
overlook the fact that my informant knew Chopin only in the last
year of his life--i.e., when he was in a very suffering state of
mind and body. This is all the information I have been able to
collect regarding the character of Chopin's mother. Moreover,
Karasowski is not an altogether trustworthy informant; as a
friend of the Chopin family he sees in its members so many
paragons of intellectual and moral perfection. He proceeds on the