Having mentally handed over to Sniatynski Hamlet's pipe, I recommended to his care Miss Hilst, and then began to discuss his pet theories. Upon his wanting to know what brought me back, I said it was the longing for the country, and consciousness of unfulfilled duties towards it. I said it in a careless, off-hand way, and Sniatynski looked puzzled, not knowing whether I spoke seriously or mockingly. And again the same phenomenon of which I spoke in Paris repeated itself here. The moral ascendency he had gained over me gradually disappeared. He did not know himself what to think, but he saw the old key would not serve any longer. When he said good-by I again recommended to him Miss Hilst. He looked at me keenly. "Do you attach much importance to her success?" "Yes, very much. She is a person I hold in great esteem, and have much friendship for." In this way I centred all his attention on Miss Hilst. Most likely he thought I had fallen in love with her. He went away angry, and could not disguise his feelings. He shut the door sharply; and when I accompanied him as far as the staircase, and turned back to the anteroom, I heard him descending the staircase, taking four steps at once, and whistling,--which he always does when angry. Besides, it was quite true, what I said about Miss Hilst. I wrote to-day to Clara, explaining why I had not been to see her, and received a reply at once. She is delighted with Warsaw, and especially its inhabitants. All the musical world has called upon her, and they are vying with each other in politeness and offers of help. Whether they would be quite as enthusiastic had she come to settle here, is another question; but Clara has the gift to win friends wherever she goes. She has already seen something of the town, and was much charmed with the Sazienki Park and Palace. I am glad she likes it,--the more so as the country, soon after crossing the frontier, seemed to her rather depressing. Truly, only those born on the soil can find any charm in the vast solitary plains, where the eye finds very little to rest upon. Clara, looking through the carriage window, said more than once: "Ah! I can understand Chopin now!" She is utterly mistaken,--she does not understand Chopin and his feelings, any more than she is in touch with his native land. I, though a cosmopolitan by education, by atavism understand our nature, and am surprised myself at the spell a Polish spring casts upon me, and it seems as if I could never feel tired of it. Properly speaking, what does the view consist of? Sometimes, on purpose, I put myself into a stranger's place,--a painter's, having no preconceived ideas about it, and look at it with his eyes. The landscape then makes upon me the impression as if a child had drawn it, or a savage, who had no notion about drawing. Flat fallow-land, wet meadows, huts with their rectangular outline, the straight poplars around country-seats on the distant horizon, a broad,