CHONOS, chainos, ARCHIPELAGO, or GUAYTECAS ISLANDS, a group of islands belonging to the Chilean_province of Chilok, lying off the west coast of Patagonia, mostly be tween lat. 44° and 46° S., and long. 74° and 75° W. Two are large, but they are nearly all semi-barren and scantily inhabited by Chonos Indians. Magdalena is the largest island, and the only settlement of any importance is Melinka.
(Chinese, *nim ble or diligent lads"), two smooth sticks, about the thickness of a quill, of bamboo, wood, or ivory, which are used by the Chinese for con veying meat or vegetables, particularly rice, to the mouth. The chop-sticks are used in various manners, serving partially the purposes of a fork and a spoon. The most curious mode of using the chop-sticks is when a bowl of rice is brought close to the lips, the mouth held wide open, and the grain dexterously dashed into it, with the chop-sticks, held one on each side of the forefinger, and plied with a rapid motion quite suggestive of the Chinese title.
CHOPIN, (Francois), Frederic, Polish pianist and composer: b. Zelazowa Wola (near Warsaw), 1 March 1809; d. Paris, 17 Oct. 1849. Chopin, in the words of Saint-Saas, °revolutionized the divine art and paved the way for all modern music"— certainly for all piano forte music. His father, Nicholas Chopin, was born in 1770, at Nancy, Lorraine, and emigrated to Warsaw, in 1787, where he was at first a bookkeeper, and subsequently a professor of French in the Lyceum. He was reputed to have Polish blood in his veins, and, in 1806, he mar ried a Polish girl, Justina Krzyzanowska, the daughter of °poor but noble parents," who bore him three girls beside Frederic, who inherited from her the intense love of his native country and its art, which is one of his most striking characteristics. He got his first lessons on the pianoforte from a Bohemian composer named Zywyny, and made such rapid progress that he was able to play a concerto in public before he was nine years old. Three years later he en tered the Lyeeuni and also took lessons in coun terpoint and harmony from the head of the Warsaw Conservatory, Joseph Elsner, who, while teaching him the value of hard work, had sense enough to recognize his genius and to al low his strilcing individuality free play. While a student at the Lyceum, he wrote a one-act with his sister, and otherwise showed such an interest in the stage that it seems strange he did not, in subsequent years, write an opera.
The earliest compositions of Chopin were national dances(mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, a krakowiak, etc.). Some of these were played at the public concerts he gave at Vienna, in Au gust 1829 and again the following year, on which occasion the critics put their fingers on some of the most marked peculiarities of his style — the unconventional accents in his phras ing, and the °melancholy tints in the style of his shading." In March 1830, having made up his mind to visit Paris and London, he gave a farewell concert at Warsaw, which was so suc cessful that two more had to be given. In No vember he became traveling virtuoso, visiting Breslau, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Munich and Stuttgart. This trip was financially a failure, and he had to write home for money to pay his fare to Paris. He was 22 years old when he reached that city, which was thenceforth to be his home. At Stuttgart he had heard of the capture of Warsaw by the Russians. There was much sympathy for unfortunate Poland in Paris, and Chopin profited by it socially. He soon became a favorite of the aristocracy, and a friend of the men and women of genius who at that time made Paris their permanent or temporary abode; Meyerbeer, Liszt, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Heine, George Sand, the Countess L'Agoult, Cherubini, Bellini, Balzac and others. Among these his genius found sympathetic appreciation, but the musical world in general never suspected that he was an epoch-making composer, even after he had lived in the French capital for 18 years. is underestimated," wrote George Sand, and Liszt said: Whoever could read in his face could see how often he felt convinced that among all these handsome, well-dressed gentlemen, among all the perfumed, elegant ladies, not one understood him." Had his contemporaries even suspected his real greatness he might have lived in luxury from the sales of his compositions (which have since his death enriched many publishers), or from a few public concerts. As it was, his concerts grew fewer and fewer, and he had to support himself by giving lessons. As a teacher he was much in demand.