Life of Chopin

and-Devotion of Friends-Last Sacraments

ed there, with pleasure, bringing with him every year to Paris several new compositions, but every winter caused him an increase of suffering. Motion became at first difficult, and soon almost impossible to him. F

ately called it mortal. Indeed, he did not long survive the rupture of his friendship with Madame Sand, which took place at this date. Madame de Stael, who, in spite of her generous and impassioned heart, her subtle and vivid intellect, fell sometimes into the fault of

to contradict the melancholy words of Madame de Stael, which so many illustrious as well as obscure facts seem to prove, our suspicions might lead us to be guilty of much ingratitude and want of trust; we might be led to doubt the si

which always brought dangerous excitement with them, he loved to return to them; as if through the same feelings which had once reanimated his life, he now wished to destroy it, sedulously stifling its powers through the vapor of this subtle poison. His last pleasure seemed to be the memory of the blasting of his last hope; he treasured the bitter knowledge that under this fatal spell his

nt of the happy past. He was another great and illustrious victim to the transitory attachments occurring between persons of different character, who, experiencing a surprise full of delight in their first sudden meeting, mistake it for a durable feeling, and build hopes and illusions upon it which can never be realized. It is always the nature the most deeply moved, the most absolute in its hopes and attachments, for which all transplantation is impossible, which is destroyed and mined in the painful awake

, he once asked the Princess Czartoryska, who visited him every day, often fearing that on the morrow he would no longer be among the living: "if Gutman was not very much fatigued? If she thought he would be able to continue his care of him;" adding, "that his presence was dearer to him than that of any other person." His convalescence was very slow and painful, le

project of visiting London. When the revolution of February broke out, he was still confined to bed, but with a melancholy effort, he seemed to try to interest himself in the eve

untry to which he had intended to go when youth and life opened in bright perspective before him. He set ou

positions of Chopi

ery much liked in

tuosi frequently

ed in London by

he title of AN ESSA

me lines marked by

ttle pamphlet is in

Shelley could scarc

to Ch

a mighty

ouled Psyc

pamphlet speaks wit

us untrammeled by

antry;... of the

ful soul-those musi

joyfulness-those ex

s-those infinitesim

to the lightest ske

n says: "One thing

ling and correct exe

n, is to be neither

, and moreover t

a life and tongue

tleties of expres

g in no less a de

er than a musici

ed in all the works

progression, a hu

a vulgar twist of

e harmony or an unsk

d for throughout the

revailing character

on as beautiful, a

melody and a harm

ing, as they are ut

rack. In taking up

ring, as it were, a

a path hitherto un

lf; and a faith, a d

termination to unde

t any thing like a

AISES and in his MA

cs, which distingui

arkedly from, that

asy, that identi

at delicious mingl

ariably and forcibl

hern nations, whose

ns of cons

inued to see, was filled with that heart-rending emotion which precedes eternal farewells! Art alone always retained its absolute power over him. Music absorbed him during the time, now constantly shortening, in which he was able to occupy himself with it, as completely as during the days when he was full of life and hope. Before he left Paris, he gave a conce

posed himself to considerable fatigue, without permitting himself to be deterred by any consideration for his health. He was presented to the Queen by the Duchess of Sutherland, and the most distinguished society sought the pleasure of his acquaintance. He went to Edinburgh, where the climate was particularly injurious to him. He was much debilitated upon his return from Scotland; his physicians wished him to leave England immediately, but he delayed for some time his departure. Who can read

s of the disease, he persuaded himself that no one could replace the trusted physician, and he had no confidence in any other. Dissatisfied with them all, without any hope from their skill, he changed them constantly. A kind of superstitious depression seized him. No tie stronger than life, no more powerful as death, came now to struggle against this bitter apathy! From the winter of 1848, Chopi

reproduce them in serenity of soul so differently from those who repeat in them their own desolation of heart,) by taking refuge in a region so barren. He sought in this employment only an absorbing and uniform occupation, he only asked from it what Manfred demanded in vain from the powers of magic: "forgetfulness!" Forgetfulness-granted neither by the gayety of amusement, nor the lethargy of torpor! On the contrary, with venomous guile, they always compensate in the renewed intensity of woe, for the time they may have succeeded in benumbing

pleated, wit

e soul-stor

in toil itse

labored, less

grains thou

eternit

strikest from

he minutes-da

lation of SCHI

gung, die

chafft, doch

m Bau der

nur, fuer Sa

grossen Sch

age, Jahr

eale-S

stract, too fatiguing. He contemplated the form of his project, he spoke of it at different times, but

, the presentiments, the redoubled sadness around him, without showing what impression they made upon him. He thought of death with Christian calm and resignation, yet he did not cease to prepare for the morrow. The fancy he had for changing his residence was once more manifested, he took another

nts when upon the eve of some event which is to decide their fate. The eager heart, urged on by a desire to unravel the mystic secrets of the unknown Future, contradicts the colder, the more timid intellect, which fears to plunge into the uncertain abyss of the coming fate! This want of harmony between the simultaneous previsions of the mi

he contemplated the approach of death. He desired to be buried by the side of Bellini, with whom, during the time of Bellini's residence in Paris, he had been intimately acquainted. The grave of Bellini is in the cemetery of Pere LaChaise, next to that of Cherubini. The desire of forming an acquaintance with this great master whom he had been brought up to admire, was one of the motives which, when he left Vienna in 1831 to go to London, induced him, without foreseeing that his destiny would fix him there, to pass through Paris. Chopin now slee

. The fatal moment drew near. The next day, the next hour, could no longer be relied upon. M. Gutman and his sister were in constant attendance upon him, never for a single moment leaving him. The Countess Delphine Potocka, who was

memoration of past facts and passing ideas when still breathing upon the narrow strait which separates time from eternity, affect us more deeply than any thing else in this world. Sudden catastrophes, the dreadful alternations forced upon the shuddering fragile ship, tossed like a toy by the wild breath of the tempest; the blood of the battle-field, with the gloomy smoke of artillery; the horrible charnel-house into which our own habitation is converted by a contagious plague; conflagrations which wrap whole cities in their glittering flames; fathomless abysses which open at our

arition; and when the crisis left him a moment in repose, he requested her to sing; they deemed him at first seized with delirium, but he eagerly repeated his request. Who could have ventured-to oppose his wish? The piano was rolled from his parlor to the door of his chamber, while, with sobs in her voice, and tears streaming down her cheeks, his gifted countrywoman sang. Certainly, this delightful voice had never before attained an expression so full of profound pathos. He seemed to suffer less as he listened. She sang that famous Canticle to the Virgin, which, it is said, once saved the life of Stradella. "How beautiful it is!" he exclaimed. "My God, how very beautiful! Again-again!" Though overwhelmed with emotion, the Countess had the no

their common expatriation, he requested that the Abbe Jelowicki, one of the most distinguished men of the Polish emigration, should be sent for. When the holy Viaticum was administered to him, he received it, surrounded by those who loved him, with great devotion. He called his friends a short tim

y evening, he appeared to revive a little. The Abbe Jelowicki had never left him. Hardly had he recovered the power of speech, than he requested him to recite with him the prayers and litanies for the dying. He was able to accompany t

a short drowsiness, he asked, in a voice scarcely audible: "Who is near me?" Being answered, he bent his head to kiss the hand of M. Gutman, who still

friends threw themselves around the loved co

peared, hidden by their varied and brilliant hues. He seemed to repose in a garden of roses. His face regained its early beauty, its purity of expression, its long unwonted

rendered their early beauty, in a sketch which he immediately

insufficient these pages may be to speak of Chopin as we would have desired, we hope that the attraction which so justly surrounds his name, will compensate for much that may be wanting in them. If to these lines, consecrated to the commemoration of his works and to all that he held dear, which the sincere esteem, enthusiastic regard, and intense sorrow for his loss, can alone gift with persuasive and sympathetic power, it were necessary to add some of the thoughts awakened in every man when death robs him of the loved contemporaries of his youth, thus breaking the first ties linked by the confiding and deluded heart with so much the greater pain if they were strong enough to survive that bright period of young life, we would say that in the same-year we have lost the two dearest friends we have known on earth. One of them perished in the wild course of civil war. Unfortunate and valiant hero! He fell with his burning courage unsubdued, his intrepid calmness undisturbed, his chivalric temerity unabated, through the endurance of the horrible tortures

all the consolations of an intelligent and comprehensive friendship. The affectionate sympathy with our feelings, with our manner of understanding art, of which this exclusive artist ha

ng us. Music is at present receiving such great and general development, that it reminds us of that which took place in painting in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even the artists who limited the productions of their genius to the margins of parchments, pain

atues and noble memorials to those who have rendered their epoch or country illustrious, originate in this design. Immediately after the death of Chopin, M. Camille Pleyel conceived a project of this kind. He commenced a subscription, (which conformably to the general expectation rapidly amounted to a considerable sum,) to have the monument modeled by M. Clesinger, executed in marble and placed in the Pere La-Chaise. In thinking over our long friendship with Chopin; on the exceptional admiration which we have always felt for him ever since his appearance in the musical world; remembering that, artist like himself, we have been the frequent interpreter of his inspirations, an interpreter, we may safely venture to say, loved and chosen by himself; that we have more frequently than others received from his own lips the spirit of his style; that we were in some