Life of Chopin

serve-Classic and Romantic Art-Language of

nevolent prejudice, this favorable presumption, are expected to justify such suppositions by the high course of life which they are required to lead. When it is seen that the poet feels with such exquisite delicacy all that which it is so sweet to inspire; that he divines with such rapid intuition all that pride, timidity, or weariness struggles to hide; that he can paint love as youth dreams it, but as riper years despair to realize it; when such sublime situations seem to be ruled by his genius, which raises itself so calmly above the calamities of human destiny, alwa

m the bitterness of petty cares, from that rapidly growing and corroding mould which usually stifles or poisons them? How many of such feelings were preserved from that subtle evaporation which robs them of their perfume, that gradually increasing inconstancy which lulls us until we forget t

presence of those unsteady restless souls, who are incited by their youthful aspirations and by the depression and utter loss of happy confidence which such a conviction would entail upon them, to struggle against a distrust so blighting! When such wavering spirits are engaged in the bitter combat with the harsh alternatives of life, or tempted at every turn by its insinuating seductions, what a profound discouragement seizes upon them when they are induced to believe that the hearts devoted to the most sublime thoughts, the most deeply initiated in the most delicate susceptibilities, the most charmed by the beauty of innocence, have denied, by their acts, the sincerity of their worship for the noble themes which they have sung as poets! With what agonizing doubts are they not filled by such flagrant contradictions! How much is

advantage, of pronouncing upon the effects of causes which they do not understand, of desiring to promulgate laws in spheres to which nature has denied them entrance. They will not receive answers from their lips, but turn to others to resolve their doubts; they question those who have drunk deeply from the boiling springs of grief, bursting from the riven clefts in the steep cliffs upon the top of which alone the soul seeks rest and light. They pass in silence by the still cold gravity of those who practice the good, without enthusiasm for the beautiful. What leisure has ardent youth to interpret their gravity, to resolve their chill problems? The throbbings of its impetuous heart are too rapid to allow it to investigate the hid

ntal amusement, a mere speculation; how much had really become incorporated with the habitual acts of life? Detraction is never idle in such cases; it seizes eagerly upon the foibles, the neglect, the faults of those who have been degraded by any weakness: alas, it omits nothing! It chases its prey, it accumulates facts only to distort them, it arrogates to itself the right of despising the inspiration to which it will grant no authority or aim but to furnish amusement, denying it any claim to guide our actions, our resolutions, our refusal, our consent! Detraction knows well how to winnow history! Casting aside all the good gra

d from temptation by the immobility of weak organizations, as well as over the pride of those, who, believing themselves superior to such temptations, do not, they assert, succeed even as well as themselves in repudiating the pursuit of material well being, the gratification of vanity, or the pleasure of immediate enjoyment! Wha

en far more than counterbalanced by the germs of creative virtues, scattered profusely through his eloquent writings? Evil is contagious, but good is truly fruitful! The poet, even while forcing his inner convictions to give way to his personal interest, still acknowledges and ennobles the sentiments which condemn himself; such sentiments attain a far wider influence through his works than can be exerted by his individual acts. Are not the number of spirits which have been calmed, consoled, edified, through these works, far greater than the number of those who have been injured by the errors of his private life? Art is far more powerful than the artist. His creations have a life independent of his vacillating will; for they are revelations of the "immutable beauty!" More durable than himself, they pas

t is to be able to name one who has fully proved that it is not only apathetic beings whom no fascination can attract, no illusion betray, who are able to limit themselves within the strict routine of honored and honorable laws, who may justly claim that elevation of soul, which no reverse subdues, and which is never found in contradiction with i

s ever more formed to justify eccentricity, whims, and abrupt caprices. His imagination was ardent, his feelings almost violent, his physical organization weak, irritable and sickly. Who can measure the amount of suff

for himself. Neither adventures, embarrassments, nor episodes, mark his life, which he succeeded in simplifying, although surrounded by circumstances which rendered such a result difficult of attainment. His own feelings, his own impressions, were his events; more important in his eyes than the chances and changes of external life. He constantly gave lessons with regularity and assiduity; domestic and daily tasks, they were given conscientiously and satisfactorily. As the dev

ear under the touch which would strive to follow or trace their outlines. He takes part in no actions, no drama, no entanglements, no denouements. He exercised a decisive influence upon no human being. His will never encroached upon the desires of another, he never const

ambitions natures, he may have thought if love and friendship are not all-they are nothing! Perhaps it would have been more painful for him to have accepted a part, any thing less than all, than to have relinquished all, and thus to have remained at least faithful to his impossible Ideal! If these things have been so or not, none ever knew, for he rarely spoke of

leisure to think of this in his presence. His conversation was rarely upon subjects of any deep interest. He glided lightly over all, and as he gave but little of his time, it was easily filled with the details of the day. He was careful never to allow himself to wander into digressions of which he himself might become the subject. His individuality rarely excited the investigations of curiosity, or awakened vivid scrutiny. He pleased too much to excite much reflection. The ensemble of his person was harmonious, and called for no especial commentary. His blue eye was more spiritual than dreamy, his bland smile ne

tain virtuosi, in the most burlesque and comic improvisations, in imitating their gestures, their movements, in counterfeiting their faces with a talent which instantaneously depicted their whole personality. His own features would then become scarcely recognizable, he could force the strangest metamorphoses upon them, but while mimicking the ugly and grotesque, he never lost his own native grace. Grimac

adness of melancholy confidences the sight of mournful faces, or the inevitable reactions which occur in susceptible natures of which we may say: Ubi mel, ibi fel. People generally like to keep such "susceptible natures" at a distance; they dislike to be brought into contact with their melancholy moods, though they do not refuse a kind of respect to the mournful feelings caused by their subtle reactions; indeed such changes

his first impression. However full of spontaneity his bearing afterwards might seem to be, it was instantaneously the effect of reflection, of a will which governed the strange conflict of emotional and moral energy with conscious physical debility; a conflict whose strange contrasts were forever warring vividly within. Th

r services proceeding rather from good intentions than from a knowledge of what would have been agreeable to him; from friendship which wounded him, because not aware of his acute but concealed susceptibility. Nevertheless the wounds caused by such awkward miscomprehension are, of all others, the most difficult for nervous temperaments to bear. Condemned to repress their vexation, such natures are excited by degrees to a state of constantly gnawing irritability, which they can never attribute to the true cause

n the preferences given to his pupils, and in the frequent and great services which he rendered to his compatriots; but we cannot remember that he took any pleasure in the expression of this feeling. If he sometimes entered upon the topic of politics, so vividly attacked, so warmly defended, so frequently discussed in Prance, i

Would the graceful elegancies of life, the high culture of the arts, indeed be safe in the rude and devastating hands of the new barbarians? He followed at a distance the progress of events, and an acuteness of perception, which he would scarcely have been supposed to possess, often enabled him to predict occurrences which were not anticipated even by the best informed. But though such observations escaped him, he never developed them. His concise remarks attracted no attention until time proved their truth. His good sense, full of acuteness, had early persuaded him of the perfect vacuity of the greater part of political orations, of theological discussions,

ated, and stormy discussions, in which he would take no part. In the excitement of the debate he was forgotten by the speakers, but we have often neglected to follow the chain of their reasoning, to fix our attention upon the features of Chopin, which were almost imperceptibly contracted when subjects touching upon the most important conditions of our existence were discussed with such eagerness and ardor, that it might have been thought

a tacit confession that he considered himself legitimately possessed of the authority of a great artist. In questions which he dignified by his competence, he never left any doubt with regard to the nature of his opinions. During several years his appeals were full of impassioned ardor, but later, the triumph of his opin

o succeeded them no other glory than the hope of approaching these models, more or less closely, by imitation, thus frustrating all hope of ever equalling them, because the perfecting of any process can never rival the merit of its invention. The latter denied that the immaterial Beautiful could have a fixed and absolute form. The different forms which had appeared in the history of art, seemed to them like tents spread in the interminable route of the ideal; mere momentary halting places which genius attains from epoch to epoch, and beyond which the inheritors of the past should strive to advance. The former wished to restrict the creations of times and natures the most dissimilar, within the limits of the same symmetrical frame; the latter claimed for all writers the liberty of creating their own mode, accepting no other rules than those which result from the direct relation of sentiment and form, exacting only that the form should be adequate to the expression of the sentiment. However admirable the existing models might be, they did not appear to them to have exhausted all the range of sentiments upon which art might seize, or all the forms which it m

most brilliant, the most daring representative, was Berlioz. Chopin joined this school. He persisted most strenuously in freeing himself from the servile

ich he had contracted with respect when he felt restricted by them, or bound too closely to the shore by cordage which he knew to be decayed. He obstinately refused, on the other hand, to form ties with the young artists whose success, which he deemed exaggerated, elevated a certain kind of merit too highly. He never gave the least praise to any thing which he did not believe to be a real conquest for art, or which did not evince a serious conception of the task of an artist. He did not wish to be lauded by any party, to be aided by the manoeuvres of any faction

justified the confidence he placed in his own genius. The solid studies which he had made, the reflective habits of his youth, the worship for classic models in which he had been educated, preserved him from losing his strength in blind gropings, in doubtful triumphs, as has happened to more than one partisan of the new ideas. His studious patience in the elaboration of his works sheltered him from the critics, who envenomed the dissensions by seizing upon those easy and insignificant victories due to omissions, and the negligence of inadvertence. Early trained to the exactio

e imitated from the New Heloise which was much in vogue at the time of its publication, and who was still living in Volhynia at the date of our visit to Poland, though more than eighty years of age, in conformity with the custom spoken of above, had caused his coffin to be made, and for more than thirty years it had always stood at the door of his chamber.] Their dearest wishes were thus expressed for the last time, their inmost feelings were thus at the hour of death betrayed. Monastic robes were frequently chosen by worldly men, the costumes of official charges were selected or refused as the remembrances connected with them were glorious or painful. Chopin, who, although among the first of contemporary artists, had given the fewest concerts, wishe

ed to be a law with him, may be attributed to the pleasure he took in the use of this language. He always used it with the people of his own country, and loved to translate its most expressive phrases. He was a good French scholar, as the Sclaves generally are. In consequence of his French origin, the language had been taught him with peculiar care. But he did not like it, he did not think it sufficiently sonorous, and he deemed its genius cold. This opinion is very prevalent among the Poles, who, although speaking it with great facility, often better than their native tongue, and frequently using it in their intercourse with each other, yet complain to those who do not speak Polish of the impossibility of rendering the thousand ethereal and shifting modes of thought in any other idiom. In their opinion it is sometimes dignity, sometimes grace, sometimes passion, which is wanting in the French language. If they are asked the meaning of a word or a phrase which they may have cited in Polish, the reply invariably is: "Oh, that cannot be translated!" Then follow explanations, serving as comments to the exclamation, of all the subtleties, all the shades of meaning, all the delicacies contained in THE NOT TO BE TRANSLATED words. We have cited some examples which, joined to others, induce us to believe that this language has the advantage of making images of abstract nouns, and that in the course of its development, through the

a profane eye, have however nothing barbaric in their sounds, being pronounced nearly like GEAI, and TCHE, and greatly facilitate imitations of the sense by the sound. The word DZWIEK, (read DZWIINQUE,) meaning sound, offers a characteristic example of this; it would be difficult to find a word which would reproduce more accurately the sensation which a diapason makes upon the ear. Among the consonants accumulated in groups, producing very different sounds, sometimes metallic, sometimes buzzing, hissing or rumbling, many diphthongs and vowels are mingled, which sometimes become slightly nasal, the A and E being sounded as ON and IN, (in French,) when they are accompanied by a cedilla. In juxtaposition with the E, (TSE,) which is pronounced with great softness, sometimes C, (TSIE,) the accented S is almost warbled. The Z has three sounds: the Z, (JAIS,) the Z, (ZED,) and the Z, (ZIED). The Y forms a vowel of a muffled tone, which, as the L, cannot be represented by any equivalent sound in French, and which like it gives a variety of ineffable shades to the language. These fine and light elements enable the Polish women to assume a lingering and singing accent, which they usually transport into other tongues. When the subjects are serious or melancholy, after such recitatives or improvised lamentations, they have a sort of lisping infantile manner of speaking, which they vary by light silvery laughs, little interjectional cries, short musical pauses upon the higher notes, from which they descend by one knows not what chromatic scale of demi and quarter tones to rest upon some low note; and again pursue the varied, brusque and original modulations which astonish the ear not accustomed to such lovely warblings, to which they sometimes give that air of caressing irony, of cunning mockery, peculiar to

He sought for all that he had reason to believe would please his friends in Warsaw, adding constant presents to his many letters. It was his wish that his gifts should be preserved, that through the memories linked with them he might be often remembered by those to whom they were sent. He attached the greatest importance, on his side, to all the evidences of their affection for him.

race of his manners. He was passionately fond of flowers. Without aiming at the brilliant luxury with which, at that epoch, some of the celebrities i

whole evenings in playing blind man's buff with the young people, telling them little stories to make them break into the silvery laughs of youth, sweeter than the song of the nightingale. He was fond of a life in the country, or the