His piano playing at this time was neat and finished, and he had
already begun those experimentings in technique and tone that
afterward revolutionized the world of music and the keyboard. He
being sickly and his sister's health poor, the pair was sent in
1826 to Reinerz, a watering place in Prussian Silesia. This with
a visit to his godmother, a titled lady named Wiesiolowska and a
sister of Count Frederic Skarbek,--the name does not tally with
the one given heretofore, as noted by Janotha,--consumed this
year. In 1827 he left his regular studies at the Lyceum and
devoted his time to music. He was much in the country, listening
to the fiddling and singing of the peasants, thus laying the
corner stone of his art as a national composer. In the fall of
1828 he went to Berlin, and this trip gave him a foretaste of the
outer world.

Stephen Heller, who saw Chopin in 1830, described him as pale, of
delicate health, and not destined, so they said in Warsaw, for a
long life. This must have been during one of his depressed
periods, for his stay in Berlin gives a record of unclouded
spirits. However, his sister Emilia died young of pulmonary
trouble and doubtless Frederic was predisposed to lung complaint.
He was constantly admonished by his relatives to keep his coat
closed. Perhaps, as in Wagner's case, the uncontrollable gayety
and hectic humors were but so many signs of a fatal
disintegrating process. Wagner outlived them until the Scriptural
age, but Chopin succumbed when grief, disappointment and intense
feeling had undermined him. For the dissipations of the "average
sensual man" he had an abiding contempt. He never smoked, in fact
disliked it. His friend Sand differed greatly in this respect,