Life of Chopin

The delicacy of his heart and constitution imposed upon him the woman's torture, that of enduring agonies never to be confessed, thus giving to his fate some of the darker hues of feminine destiny. Excluded, by the infirm state of his health, from the exciting arena of ordinary activity, without any taste for the useless buzzing, in which a few bees, joined with many wasps, expend their superfluous strength, he built apart from all noisy and frequented routes a secluded cell 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 devout in prayer, so he poured out his soul in his compositions, expressing in them those passions of the heart, those unexpressed sorrows, to which the pious give vent in their communion with their Maker. What they never say except upon their knees, he said in his palpitating compositions; uttering in the language of the tones those mysteries of passion and of grief which man has been permitted to understand without words, because there are no words adequate for their expression.

The care taken by Chopin to avoid the zig-zags of life, to eliminate from it all that was useless, to prevent its crumbling into masses without form, has deprived his own course of incident. The vague lines and indications surrounding his figure like misty clouds, disappear 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 constrained any other spirit, or crashed it under the domination of his own, He never tyrannized over another heart, he never placed a conquering hand upon the destiny of another being. He sought nothing; he would have scorned to have made any demands. Like Tasso, he might say:

Brama assai, poco spera, e nulla chiede. In compensation, he escaped from all ties; from the affections which might have influenced him, or led him into more tumultuous spheres. Ready to yield all, he never gave himself. Perhaps he knew what exclusive devotion, what love without limit he was worthy of inspiring, of understanding, of sharing! Like other ardent and 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 love or friendship. He was not exacting, like those whose high claims and just demands exceed all that we possess to offer them. The most intimate of his acquaintances never penetrated to that secluded fortress in which the soul, absent from his common life, dwelt; a fortress which he so well succeeded in concealing, that its very existence was scarcely suspected.

In his relations and intercourse with others, he always seemed occupied in what interested them; he was cautions not to lead them from the circle of their own personality, lest they should intrude into his. If he gave up but little of his time to others, at least of that which he did relinquish, he reserved none for himself. No one ever asked him to give an account of his dreams, his wishes, or his hopes. No one seemed to wish to know what he sighed for, what he might have conquered, if his white and tapering fingers could have linked the brazen chords of life to the golden ones of his enchanted lyre! No one had 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 never writhed into bitterness. The transparent delicacy of his complexion pleased the eye, his fair hair was soft and silky, his nose slightly aquiline, his bearing so distinguished, and his manners stamped with so much high breeding, that involuntarily he was always treated EN PRINCE. His gestures were many and graceful; the tone of his voice was veiled, often stifled; his stature was low, and his limbs slight. He constantly reminded us of a convolvulus balancing its heaven-colored cup upon an incredibly slight stem, the tissue of which is so like vapor that the slightest contact wounds and tears the misty corolla.

His manners in society possessed that serenity of mood which distinguishes those whom no ennui annoys, because they expect no interest. He was generally gay, his caustic spirit caught the ridiculous rapidly and far below the surface at which it usually strikes the eye. He displayed a rich vein of drollery in pantomime. He often amused himself by reproducing the musical formulas and peculiar tricks of certain 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. Grimace was never carried far enough to disfigure him; his gayety was so much the more piquant because he always restrained it within the limits of perfect good taste, holding at a suspicious distance all that could wound the most fastidious delicacy. He never made use of an inelegant word, even in the moments of the most entire familiarity; an improper merriment, a coarse jest would have been shocking to him.

Through a strict exclusion of all subjects relating to himself from conversation, through a constant reserve with regard to his own feelings, he always succeeded in leaving a happy impression behind him. People in general like those who charm them without causing them to fear that they will be called upon to render aught in return for the amusement given, or that the pleasurable excitement of gayety will be followed by the sadness 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 possess for them the attraction of the unknown and they are as ready to take delight in the description of such changing caprices, as they are to avoid their reality. The presence of Chopin was always feted. He interested himself so vividly in all that was not himself, that his own personality remained intact, unapproached and unapproachable, under the polished and glassy surface upon which it was impossible to gain footing.

On some occasions, although very rarely, we have seen him deeply agitated. We have seen him grow so pale and wan, that his appearance was actually corpse-like. But even in moments of the most intense emotion, he remained concentrated within himself. A single instant for self-recovery always enabled him to veil the secret of 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. The dominion exercised over the natural violence of his character reminds us of the melancholy force of those beings who seek their strength in isolation and entire self-control, conscious of the uselessness of their vivid indignation and vexation, and too jealous of the mysteries of their passions to betray them gratuitously.

He could pardon in the most noble manner. No rancor remained in his heart toward those who had wounded him, though such wounds penetrated deeply in his soul, and fermented there in vague pain and internal suffering, so that long after the exciting cause had been effaced from his memory, he still experienced the secret torture. By dint of constant effort, in spite of his acute and tormenting sensibilities, he subjected his feelings to the rule rather of what ought to be, than of what is; thus he was grateful for 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. It would be a gross mistake to imagine that this irritation existed without provocation. But as a dereliction from what appeared to him to be the most honorable course of conduct was a temptation which he was never called upon to resist, because in all probability it never presented itself to him; so he never, in the presence of the more vigorous and therefore more brusque and positive individualities than his own, unveiled the shudder, if repulsion be too strong a term, caused by their contact or association.

The reserve which marked his intercourse with others, extended to all subjects to which the fanaticism of opinion can attach. His own sentiments could only be estimated by that which he did not do in the narrow limits of his activity. His patriotism was revealed in the course taken by his genius, in the choice of his friends, in 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, it was rather to point out what he deemed dangerous or erroneous in the opinions advanced by others than to win attention for his own. In constant connection with some of the most brilliant politicians of the day, he knew how to limit the relations between them to a personal attachment entirely independent of political interests.

Democracy presented to his view an agglomeration of elements too heterogeneous, too restless, wielding too much savage power, to win his sympathies. The entrance of social and political questions into the arena of popular discussion was compared, more than twenty years ago, to a new and bold incursion of barbarians. Chopin was peculiarly and painfully struck by the terror which this comparison awakened. He despaired of obtaining the safety of Rome from these modern Attilas, he feared the destruction of art, its monuments, its refinements, its civilization; in a word, he dreaded the loss of the elegant, cultivated if somewhat indolent ease described by Horace. 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, of philosophic digressions. He began early to practice the favorite maxim of a man of great distinction, whom we have often heard repeat a remark dictated by the misanthropic wisdom of age, which was then startling to our inexperienced impetuosity, but which has since frequently struck us by its melancholy truth: "You will be persuaded one day as I am," (said the Marquis de Noailles to the young people whom he honored with his attention, and who were becoming heated in some naive discussions of differing opinions,) "that it is scarcely possible to talk about any thing to any body." (Qu'il n'y a guere moyen de causer de quoi que ce soit, avec qui que ce soit.)

Sincerely religious, and attached to Catholicity, Chopin never touched upon this subject, but held his faith without attracting attention to it. One might have been acquainted with him for a long time, without knowing exactly what his religious opinion were. Perhaps to console his inactive hand an reconcile it with his lute, he persuaded himself to think: Il mondo va da se. We have frequently watched him during the progress of long, animated, 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 our fates were to be instantly decided by the result of the debate. At such times, he appeared to us like a passenger on board of a vessel, driven and tossed by tempests upon the stormful waves, thinking of his distant country, watching the horizon, the stars, the manoeuvres of the sailors, counting their fatal mistakes, without possessing in himself sufficient force to seize a rope, or the energy requisite to haul in a fluttering sail.

On one single subject he relinquished his premeditated silence, his cherished neutrality. In the cause of art he broke through his reserve, he never abdicated upon this topic the explicit enunciation of his opinions. He applied himself with great perseverance to extend the limits of his influence upon this subject. It was 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 opinions having diminished the interest of his role, he sought no further occasion to place himself as leader, as the bearer of any banner. In the only occurrence in which he took part in the conflict of parties, he gave proof of opinions, absolute, tenacious, and inflexible, as those which rarely come to the light usually are.

Shortly after his arrival in Paris, in 1832, a new school was formed both in literature and music, and youthful talent appeared, which shook off with eclat the yoke of ancient formulas. The scarcely lulled political effervescence of the first years of the revolution of July, passed into questions upon art and letters, which attracted the attention and interest of all minds. ROMANTICISM was the order of the day; they fought with obstinacy for and against it. What truce could there be between those who would not admit the possibility of writing in any other than the already established manner, and those who thought that the artist should be allowed to choose such forms as he deemed best suited for the expression of his ideas; that the rule of form should be found in the agreement of the chosen form with the sentiments to be expressed, every different shade of feeling requiring of course a different mode of expression? The former believed in the existence of a permanent form, whose perfection represented absolute Beauty. But in admitting that the great masters had attained the highest limits in art, had reached supreme perfection, they left to the artists who 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 might advantageously use. Not contented with the mere excellence of form, they sought it so far only as its perfection is indispensable for the complete revelation of the idea, for they were not ignorant that the sentiment is maimed if the form remain imperfect, any imperfection in it, like an opaque veil, intercepting the raying of the pure idea. Thus they elevated what had otherwise been the mere work of the trade, into the sphere of poetic inspiration. They enjoined upon genius and patience the task of inventing a form which would satisfy the exactions of the inspiration. They reproached their adversaries with attempting to reduce inspiration to the bed of Procrustes, because they refused to admit that there are sentiments which cannot be expressed in forms which have been determined upon beforehand, and of thus robbing art, in advance even of their creation, of all works which might attempt the introduction of newly awakened ideas, newly clad in new forms; forms and ideas both naturally arising from the naturally progressive development of the human spirit, the improvement of the instruments, and the consequent increase of the material resources of art.

Those who saw the flames of Genius devour the old worm-eaten crumbling skeletons, attached themselves to the musical school of which the most gifted, the most brilliant, the most daring representative, was Berlioz. Chopin joined this school. He persisted most strenuously in freeing himself from the servile formulas of conventional style, while he earnestly repudiated the charlatanism which sought to replace the old abuses only by the introduction of new ones.

During the years which this campaign of Romanticism lasted, in which some of the trial blows were master-strokes, Chopin remained invariable in his predilections, as well as in his repulsions. He did not admit the least compromise with those who, in his opinion, did not sufficiently represent progress, and who, in their refusal to relinquish the desire of displaying art for the profit of the trade, in their pursuit of transitory effects, of success won only from the astonishment of the audience, gave no proof of sincere devotion to progress. He broke the ties which 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, or by the concessions made by any schools in the persons of their chiefs. In the midst of jealousies, encroachments, forfeitures, and invasions of the different branches of art, negotiations, treaties, and contracts have been introduced, like the means and appliances of diplomacy, with all the artifices inseparable from such a course. In refusing the support of any accessory aid for his productions, he proved that he confidently believed that their own beauty would ensure their appreciation, and that he did not struggle to facilitate their immediate reception.

He supported our struggles, at that time so full of uncertainty, when we met more sages shaking their heads, than glorious adversaries, with his calm and unalterable conviction. He aided us with opinions so fixed that neither weariness nor artifice could shake them, with a rare immutability of will, and that efficacious assistance which the creation of meritorious works always brings to a struggling cause, when it can claim them as its own. He mingled so many charms, so much moderation, so much knowledge with his daring innovations, that the prompt admiration he inspired fully 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 exactions and restrictions of rules, having produced compositions filled with beauty when subjected to all their fetters, he never shook them off without an appropriate cause and after due reflection. In virtue of his principles he always progressed, but without being led into exaggeration or lured by compromise; he willingly relinquished theoretic formulas to pursue their results. Less occupied with the disputes of the schools and their terms, than in producing himself the best argument, a finished work, he was fortunate enough to avoid personal enmities and vexatious accommodations.

Chopin had that reverential worship for art which characterized the first masters of the middle ages, but in expression and bearing he was more simple, modern, and less ecstatic. As for them, so art was for him, a high and holy vocation. Like them he was proud of his election for it, and honored it with devout piety. This feeling was revealed at the hour of his death through an occurrence, the significance of which is more fully explained by a knowledge of the manners prevalent in Poland. By a custom which still exists, although it is now falling into disuse, the Poles often chose the garments in which they wished to be buried, and which were frequently prepared a long time in advance.[9 - General K–, the author of Julie and Adolphe, a romance 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, wished, notwithstanding, to be borne to the grave in the clothes which he had worn on such occasions. A natural and profound feeling springing from the inexhaustible sources of art, without doubt dictated this dying request, when having scrupulously fulfilled the last duties of a Christian, he left all of earth which he could not bear with him to the skies. He had linked his love for art and his faith in it with immortality long before the approach of death, and as he robed himself for his long sleep in the grave, he gave, as was customary with him, by a mute symbol, the last touching proof of the conviction he had preserved intact during the whole course of his life. Faithful to himself, he died adoring art in its mystic greatness, its highest revelations.

In retiring from the turmoil of society, Chopin concentrated his cares and affections upon the circle of his own family and his early acquaintances. Without any interruption he preserved close relations with them; never ceasing to keep them up with the greatest care. His sister Louise was especially dear to him, a resemblance in the character of their minds, the bent of their feelings, bound them closely to each other. Louise frequently came from Warsaw to Paris to see him. She spent the last three months of his life with the brother she loved, watching over him with undying affection. Chopin kept up a regular correspondence with the members of his own family, but only with them. It was one of his peculiarities to write letters to no others; it might almost have been thought that he had made a vow to write to no strangers. It was curious enough to see him resort to all kinds of expedients to escape the necessity of tracing the most insignificant note. Many times he has traversed Paris from one end to the other, to decline an invitation to dinner, or to give some trivial information, rather than write a few lines which would have spared him all this trouble and loss of time. His handwriting was quite unknown to the greatest number of his friends. It is said he sometimes departed from this custom in favor of his beautiful countrywomen, some of whom possess several of his notes written in Polish. This infraction of what seemed 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 poetic genius of the nation, it has been enabled to establish striking and just relations between ideas by etymologies, derivations, and synonymes. Colored reflections of light and shade are thus thrown upon all expressions, so that they necessarily call into vibration through the mind the correspondent tone of a third, which modulates the thought into a major or minor mode. The richness of the language always permits the choice of the mode, but this very richness may become a difficulty. It is not impossible that the general use of foreign tongues in Poland may be attributed to indolence of mind or want of application; may be traced to a desire to escape the necessary labor of acquiring that mastery of diction indispensable in a language so full of sudden depths, of laconic energy, that it is very difficult, if not quite impossible, to support in it the commonplace. The vague agreements of badly defined ideas cannot be compressed in the nervous strength of its grammatical forms; the thought, if it be really low, cannot be elevated from its debasement or poverty; if it really soar above the commonplace, it requires a rare precision of terms not to appear uncouth or fantastic. In consequence of this, in proportion to the works published, the Polish literature should be able to show a greater number of chefs-d'oeuvre than can be done in any other language. He who ventures to use this tongue, must feel himself already master.[10 - It cannot be reproached with a want of harmony or musical charm. The harshness of a language does not always and absolutely depend upon the number of consonants, but rather upon the manner of their association. We might even assert, that in consequence of the absence of well-determined and strongly marked sounds, some languages have a dull and cold coloring. It is the frequent repetition of certain consonants which gives shadow, rhythm, and vigor to a tongue; the vowels imparting only a kind of light clear hue, which requires to be brought out by deeper shades. It is the sharp, uncouth, or unharmonious clashing of heterogeneous consonants which strikes the ear painfully. It is true the Sclavic languages make use of many consonants, but their connection is generally sonorous, sometimes pleasant to the ear, and scarcely ever entirely discordant, even when the combinations are more striking than agreeable. The quality of the sounds is rich, full, and varied. They are not straitened and contracted as if produced in a narrow medium, but extending through a considerable register, range through a variety of intonations. The letter L, almost impossible for those to pronounce, who have not acquired the pronunciation in their infancy, has nothing harsh in its sound. The ear receives from it an impression similar to that which is made upon the fingers by the touch of a thick woolen velvet, rough, but at the same time, yielding. The union of jarring consonants being rare, and the assonances easily multiplied, the same comparison might be employed to the ensemble of the effect produced by these idioms upon foreigners. Many words occur in Polish which imitate the sound of the thing designated by them. The frequent repetition of CH, (h aspirated,) of SZ, (CH in French,) of RZ, of CZ, so frightful to 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 the song of some birds. They love to ZINZILYLER, and charming changes, piquant intervals, unexpected cadences naturally find place in this fondling prattle, making the language far more sweet and caressing when spoken by the women, than it is in the mouths of the men. The men indeed pride themselves upon speaking it with elegance, impressing upon it a masculine sonorousness, which is peculiarly adapted to the energetic movements of manly eloquence, formerly so much cultivated in Poland. Poetry commands such a diversity of prosodies, of rhymes, of rhythms, such an abundance of assonances from these rich and varied materials, that it is almost possible to follow MUSICALLY the feelings and scenes which it depicts, not only in mere expressions in which the sound repeats the sense, but also in long declamations. The analogy between the Polish and Russian, has been compared to that which obtains between the Latin and Italian. The Russian language is indeed more mellifluous, more lingering, more caressing, fuller of sighs than the Polish. Its cadencing is peculiarly fitted for song. The finer poems, such as those of Zukowski and Pouchkin, seem to contain a melody already designated in the metre of the verses; for example, it would appear quite possible to detach an ARIOSO or a sweet CANTIABLE from some of the stanzas of LE CHALE NOIR, or the TALISMAN. The ancient Sclavonic, which is the language of the Eastern Church, possesses great majesty. More guttural than the idioms which have arisen from it, it is severe and monotonous yet of great dignity, like the Byzantine paintings preserved in the worship to which it is consecrated. It has throughout the characteristics of a sacred language which has only been used for the expression of one feeling and has never been modulated or fashioned by profane wants.]

Chopin mingled a charming grace with all the intercourse which he held with his relatives. Not satisfied with limiting his whole correspondence to them alone, he profited by his stay in Paris to procure for them the thousand agreeable surprises given by the novelties, the bagatelles, the little gifts which charm through their beauty, or attract as being the first seen of their kind. 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. To receive news or some mark of their remembrance, was always a festival for him. He never shared this pleasure with any one, but it was plainly visible in his conduct. He took the greatest care of every thing that came from his distant friends, the least of their gifts was precious to him, he never allowed others to make use of them, indeed he was visibly uneasy if they touched them.

Material elegance was as natural to him as mental; this was evinced in the objects with which he surrounded himself, as well as in the aristocratic grace of his manners. He was passionately fond of flowers. Without aiming at the brilliant luxury with which, at that epoch, some of the celebrities in Paris decorated their apartments, he knew how to keep upon this point, as well as in his style of dress, the instinctive line of perfect propriety.

Not wishing the course of his life, his thoughts, his time, to be associated or shackled in any way by the pursuits of others, he preferred the society of ladies, as less apt to force him into subsequent relations. He willingly spent 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 life of the chateau. He was ingenious in varying its amusements, in multiplying its enjoyments. He also loved to compose there. Many of his best works written in such moments, perhaps embalm and hallow the memories of his happiest days.

CHAPTER VI

Birth and Early Life of Chopin—National Artists—Chopin embodies in himself the poetic sense of his whole nation—Opinion of Beethoven.

CHOPIN was born in 1810, at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw. Unlike most other children, he could not, during his childhood, remember his own age, and the date of his birth was only fixed in his memory by a watch given him in 1820 by Madame Catalani, which bore the following inscription: "Madame Catalani to Frederic Chopin, aged ten years." Perhaps the presentiments of the artist gave to the child a foresight of his future! Nothing extraordinary marked the course of his boyhood; his internal development traversed but few phases, and gave but few manifestations. As he was fragile and sickly, the attention of his family was concentrated upon his health. Doubtless it was from this cause that he acquired his habits of affability, his patience under suffering, his endurance of every annoyance with a good grace; qualities which he early acquired from his wish to calm the constant anxiety that was felt with regard to him. No precocity of his faculties, no precursory sign of remarkable development, revealed, in his early years, his future superiority of soul, mind, or capacity. The little creature was seen suffering indeed, but always trying to smile, patient and apparently happy and his friends were so glad that he did not become moody or morose, that they were satisfied to cherish his good qualities, believing that he opened his heart to them without reserve, and gave to them all his secret thoughts.

But there are souls among us who resemble rich travelers thrown among simple herdsmen, loading them with gifts during their sojourn among them, truly not at all in proportion to their own wealth, yet which are quite sufficient to astonish the poor hosts, and to spread riches and happiness in the midst of such simple habits. It is true that such souls give as much affection, it may be more, than those who surround them; every body is pleased with them, they are supposed to have been generous, when the truth is that in comparison with their boundless wealth they have not been liberal, and have given but little of their store of internal treasure.

The habits in which Chopin grew up, in which he was rocked as in a form-strengthening cradle, were those peculiar to calm, occupied, and tranquil characters. These early examples of simplicity, piety, and integrity, always remained the nearest and dearest to him. Domestic virtues, religious habits, pious charities, and rigid modesty, surrounded him from his infancy with that pure atmosphere in which his rich imagination assumed the velvety tenderness characterizing the plants which have never been exposed to the dust of the beaten highways.

He commenced the study of music at an early age, being but nine years old when he began to learn it. Shortly after he was confided to a passionate disciple of Sebastian Bach, Ziwna, who directed his studies during many years in accordance with the most classic models. It is not to be supposed that when he embraced the career of a musician, any prestige of vain glory, any fantastic perspective, dazzled his eyes, or excited the hopes of his family. In order to become a skillful and able master, he studied seriously and conscientiously, without dreaming of the greater or less amount of fame he would be able to obtain as the fruit of his lessons and assiduous labors.

In consequence of the generous and discriminating protection always granted by Prince Antoine Radziwill to the arts, and to genius, which he had the power of recognizing both as a man of intellect and as a distinguished artist; Chopin was early placed in one of the first colleges in Warsaw. Prince Radziwill did not cultivate music only as a simple dilettante, he was also a remarkable composer. His beautiful rendering of Faust, published some years ago, and executed at fixed epochs by the Academy of Song at Berlin, appears to us far superior to any other attempts which have been made to transport it into the realm of music, by its close internal appropriateness to the peculiar genius of the poem. Assisting the limited means of the family of Chopin, the Prince made him the inestimable gift of a finished education, of which no part had been neglected. Through the person of a friend, M. Antoine Korzuchowski, whose own elevated mind enabled him to understand the requirements of an artistic career, the Prince always paid his pension from his first entrance into college, until the completion of his studies. From this time until the death of Chopin, M. Antoine Korzuchowski always held the closest relations of friendship with him.

In speaking of this period of his life, it gives us pleasure to quote the charming lines which may be applied to him more justly, than other pages in which his character is believed to have been traced, but in which we only find it distorted, and in such false proportions as are given in a profile drawn upon an elastic tissue, which has been pulled athwart, biased by contrary movements during the whole progress of the sketch.[11 - These extracts, with many that succeed them, in which the character of Chopin is described, are taken from Lucrezia Floriani, a novel by Madame Sand, in which the leading characters are said to be intended to represent Liszt, Chopin, and herself.—Note of the Translator.]

"Gentle, sensitive, and very lovely, at fifteen years of age he united the charms of adolescence with the gravity of a more mature age. He was delicate both in body and in mind. Through the want of muscular development he retained a peculiar beauty, an exceptional physiognomy, which had, if we may venture so to speak, neither age nor sex. It was not the bold and masculine air of a descendant of a race of Magnates, who knew nothing but drinking, hunting and making war; neither was it the effeminate loveliness of a cherub couleur de rose. It was more like the ideal creations with which the poetry of the middle ages adorned the Christian temples: a beautiful angel, with a form pure and slight as a young god of Olympus, with a face like that of a majestic woman filled with a divine sorrow, and as the crown of all, an expression at the same time tender and severe, chaste and impassioned.

"This expression revealed the depths of his being. Nothing could be purer, more exalted than his thoughts; nothing more tenacious, more exclusive, more intensely devoted, than his affections.... But he could only understand that which closely resembled himself.... Every thing else only existed for him as a kind of annoying dream, which he tried to shake off while living with the rest of the world. Always plunged in reveries, realities displeased him. As a child he could never touch a sharp instrument without injuring himself with it; as a man, he never found himself face to face with a being different from himself without being wounded by the living contradiction…

"He was preserved from constant antagonism by a voluntary and almost inveterate habit of never seeing or hearing any thing which was disagreeable to him, unless it touched upon his personal affections. The beings who did not think as he did, were only phantoms in his eyes. As his manners were polished and graceful, it was easy to mistake his cold disdain on insurmountable aversion for benevolent courtesy…

"He never spent an hour in open-hearted expansiveness, without compensating for it by a season of reserve. The moral causes which induced such reserve were too slight, too subtle, to be discovered by the naked eye. It was necessary to use the microscope to read his soul, into which so little of the light of the living ever penetrated....

"With such a character, it seems strange he should have had friends: yet he had them, not only the friends of his mother who esteemed him as the noble son of a noble mother, but friends of his own age, who loved him ardently, and who were loved by him in return.... He had formed a high ideal of friendship; in the age of early illusions he loved to think that his friends and himself, brought up nearly in the same manner, with the same principles, would never change their opinions, and that no formal disagreement could ever occur between them....

"He was externally so affectionate, his education had been so finished, and he possessed so much natural grace, that he had the gift of pleasing even where he was not personally known. His exceeding loveliness was immediately prepossessing, the delicacy of his constitution rendered him interesting in the eyes of women, the full yet graceful cultivation of his mind, the sweet and captivating originality of his conversation, gained for him the attention of the most enlightened men. Men less highly cultivated, liked him for his exquisite courtesy of manner. They were so much the more pleased with this, because, in their simplicity, they never imagined it was the graceful fulfillment of a duty into which no real sympathy entered.

"Could such people have divined the secrets of his mystic character, they would have said he was more amiable than loving—and with respect to them, this would have been true. But how could they have known that his real, though rare attachments, were so vivid, so profound, so undying?…

"Association with him in the details of life was delightful. He filled all the forms of friendship with an unaccustomed charm, and when he expressed his gratitude, it was with that deep emotion which recompenses kindness with usury. He willingly imagined that he felt himself every day dying; he accepted the cares of a friend, hiding from him, lest it should render him unhappy, the little time he expected to profit by them. He possessed great physical courage, and if he did not accept with the heroic recklessness of youth the idea of approaching death, at least he cherished the expectation of it with a kind of bitter pleasure."…

The attachment which he felt for a young lady, who never ceased to feel a reverential homage for him, may be traced back to his early youth. The tempest which in one of its sudden gusts tore Chopin from his native soil, like a bird dreamy and abstracted surprised by the storm upon the branches of a foreign tree, sundered the ties of this first love, and robbed the exile of a faithful and devoted wife, as well as disinherited him of a country. He never found the realization of that happiness of which he had once dreamed with her, though he won the glory of which perhaps he had never thought. Like the Madonnas of Luini whose looks are so full of earnest tenderness, this young girl was sweet and beautiful. She lived on calm, but sad. No doubt the sadness increased in that pure soul when she knew that no devotion tender as her own, ever came to sweeten the existence of one whom she had adored with that ingenuous submission, that exclusive devotion, that entire self-forgetfulness, naive and sublime, which transform the woman into the angel.

Those who are gifted by nature with the beautiful, yet fatal energies of genius, and who are consequently forbidden to sacrifice the care of their glory to the exactions of their love, are probably right in fixing limits to the abnegation of their own personality. But the divine emotions due to absolute devotion, may be regretted even in the presence of the most sparkling endowments of genius. The utter submission, the disinterestedness of love, in absorbing the existence, the will, the very name of the woman in that of the man she loves, can alone authorize him in believing that he has really shared his life with her, and that his honorable love for her has given her that which no chance lover, accidentally met, could have rendered her: peace of heart and the honor of his name.

This young Polish lady, unfortunately separated from Chopin, remained faithful to his memory, to all that was left of him. She devoted herself to his parents. The father of Chopin would never suffer the portrait which she had drawn of him in the days of hope, to be replaced by another, though from the hands of a far more skilful artist. We saw the pale cheeks of this melancholy woman, glow like alabaster when a light shines through its snow, many years afterwards, when in gazing upon this picture, she met the eyes of his father.

The amiable character of Chopin won for him while at college the love of his fellow collegiates, particularly that of Prince Czetwertynski and his brothers. He often spent the vacations and days of festival with them at the house of their mother, the Princess Louise Czetwertynska, who cultivated music with a true feeling for its beauties, and who soon discovered the poet in the musician. Perhaps she was the first who made Chopin feel the charm of being understood, as well as heard. The Princess was still beautiful, and possessed a sympathetic soul united to many high qualities. Her saloon was one of the most brilliant and RECHERCHE in Warsaw. Chopin often met there the most distinguished women of the city. He became acquainted there with those fascinating beauties who had acquired a European celebrity, when Warsaw was so famed for the brilliancy, elegance, and grace of its society. He was introduced by the Princess Czetwertynska to the Princess of Lowicz; by her he was presented to the Countess Zamoyska; to the Princess Radziwill; to the Princess Jablonowska; enchantresses, surrounded by many beauties little less illustrious.

While still very young, he has often cadenced their steps to the chords of his piano. In these meetings, which might almost be called assemblies of fairies, he may often have discovered, unveiled in the excitement of the dance, the secrets of enthusiastic and tender souls. He could easily read the hearts which were attracted to him by friendship and the grace of his youth, and thus was enabled early to learn of what a strange mixture of leaven and cream of roses, of gunpowder and tears of angels, the poetic Ideal of his nation is formed. When his wandering fingers ran over the keys, suddenly touching some moving chords, he could see how the furtive tears coursed down the cheeks of the loving girl, or the young neglected wife; how they moistened the eyes of the young men, enamored of, and eager for glory. Can we not fancy some young beauty asking him to play a simple prelude, then softened by the tones, leaning her rounded arm upon the instrument to support her dreaming head, while she suffered the young artist to divine in the dewy glitter of the lustrous eyes, the song sung by her youthful heart? Did not groups, like sportive nymphs, throng around him, and begging him for some waltz of giddying rapidity, smile upon him with such wildering joyousness, as to put him immediately in unison with the gay spirit of the dance? He saw there the chaste grace of his brilliant countrywomen displayed in the Mazourka, and the memories of their witching fascination, their winning reserve, were never effaced from his soul.

In an apparently careless manner, but with that involuntary and subdued emotion which accompanies the remembrance of our early delights, he would sometimes remark that he first understood the whole meaning of the feeling which is contained in the melodies and rhythms of national dances, upon the days in which he saw these exquisite fairies at some magic fete, adorned with that brilliant coquetry which sparkles like electric fire, and flashing from heart to heart, heightens love, blinds it, or robs it of all hope. And when the muslins of India, which the Greeks would have said were woven of air, were replaced by the heavier folds of Venetian velvet, and the perfumed roses and sculptured petals of the hot-house camellias gave way to the gorgeous bouquets of the jewel caskets; it often seemed to him that however good the orchestra might be, the dancers glided less rapidly over the floor, that their laugh was less sonorous, their eye less luminous, than upon those evenings in which the dance had been suddenly improvised, because he had succeeded in electrifying his audience through the magic of his performance. If he electrified them, it was because he repeated, truly in hieroglyphic tones, but yet easily understood by the initiated, the secret whispers which his delicate ear had caught from the reserved yet impassioned hearts, which indeed resemble the Fraxinella, that plant so full of burning and vivid life, that its flowers are always surrounded by a gas as subtle as inflammable. He had seen celestial visions glitter, and illusory phantoms fade in this sublimated air; he had divined the meaning of the swarms of passions which are forever buzzing in it; he knew how these hurtling emotions fluttered through the reckless human soul; how, notwithstanding their ceaseless agitation and excitement, they could intermingle, interweave, intercept each other, without once disturbing the exquisite proportions of external grace, the imposing and classic charm of manner. It was thus that he learned to prize so highly the noble and measured manners which preserve delicacy from insipidity; petty cares from wearisome trifling; conventionalism from tyranny; good taste from coldness; and which never permit the passions to resemble, as is often the case where such careful culture does not rule, those stony and calcareous vegetables whose hard and brittle growth takes a name of such sad contrast: flowers of iron (FLOS FERRI).

His early introduction into this society, in which regularity of form did not conceal petrifaction of heart, induced Chopin to think that the CONVENANCES and courtesies of manner, in place of being only a uniform mask, repressing the character of each individual under the symmetry of the same lines, rather serve to contain the passions without stifling them, coloring only that bald crudity of tone which is so injurious to their beauty, elevating that materialism which debases them, robbing them of that license which vulgarizes them, lowering that vehemence which vitiates them, pruning that exuberance which exhausts them, teaching the "lovers of the ideal" to unite the virtues which have sprung from a knowledge of evil, with those "which cause its very existence to be forgotten in speaking to those they love." As these visions of his youth deepened in the long perspective of memories, they gained in grace, in charm, in delight, in his eyes, fascinating him to such an extent that no reality could destroy their secret power over his imagination, rendering his repugnance more and more unconquerable to that license of allurement, that brutal tyranny of caprice, that eagerness to drink the cup of fantasy to the very dregs, that stormy pursuit of all the changes and incongruities of life, which rule in the strange mode of life known as LA BOHEME.

More than once in the history of art and literature, a poet has arisen, embodying in himself the poetic sense of a whole nation, an entire epoch, representing the types which his contemporaries pursue and strive to realize, in an absolute manner in his works: such a poet was Chopin for his country and for the epoch in which he was born. The poetic sentiments the most widely spread, yet the most intimate and inherent of his nation, were embodied and united in his imagination, and represented by his brilliant genius. Poland has given birth to many bards, some of whom rank among the first poets of the world.

Its writers are now making strenuous efforts to display in the strongest light, the most glorious and interesting facts of its history, the most peculiar and picturesque phases of its manners and customs. Chopin, differing from them in having formed no premeditated design, surpasses them all in originality. He did not determine upon, he did not seek such a result; he created no ideal a priori. Without having predetermined to transport himself into the past, he constantly remembered the glories of his country, he understood and sung the loves and tears of his contemporaries without having analyzed them in advance. He did not task himself, nor study to be a national musician. Like all truly national poets he sang spontaneously without premeditated design or preconceived choice all that inspiration dictated to him, as we hear it gushing forth in his songs without labor, almost without effort. He repeated in the most idealized form the emotions which had animated and embellished his youth; under the magic delicacy of his pen he displayed the Ideal, which is, if we may be permitted so to speak, the Real among his people; an Ideal really in existence among them, which every one in general and each one in particular approaches by the one or the other of its many sides. Without assuming to do so, he collected in luminous sheaves the impressions felt everywhere throughout his country—vaguely felt it is true, yet in fragments pervading all hearts. Is it not by this power of reproducing in a poetic formula, enchanting to the imagination of all nations, the indefinite shades of feeling widely scattered but frequently met among their compatriots, that the artists truly national are distinguished?

Not without reason has the task been undertaken of collecting the melodies indigenous to every country. It appears to us it would be of still deeper interest, to trace the influences forming the characteristic powers of the authors most deeply inspired by the genius of the nation to which they belong. Until the present epoch there have been very few distinctive compositions, which stand out from the two great divisions of the German and Italian schools of music. But with the immense development which this art seems destined to attain, perhaps renewing for us the glorious era of the Painters of the CINQUE CENTO, it is highly probable that composers will appear whose works will be marked by an originality drawn from differences of organization, of races, and of climates. It is to be presumed that we will be able to recognize the influences of the country in which they were born upon the great masters in music, as well as in the other arts; that we will be able to distinguish the peculiar and predominant traits of the national genius more completely developed, more poetically true, more interesting to study, in the pages of their compositions than in the crude, incorrect, uncertain, vague and tremulous sketches of the uncultured people.

Chopin must be ranked among the first musicians thus individualizing in themselves the poetic sense of an entire nation, not because he adopted the rhythm of POLONAISES, MAZOURKAS, and CRACOVIENNES, and called many of his works by such names, for in so doing he would have limited himself to the multiplication of such works alone, and would always have given us the same mode, the remembrance of the same thing; a reproduction which would soon have grown wearisome, serving but to multiply compositions of similar form, which must have soon grown more or less monotonous. It is because he filled these forms with the feelings peculiar to his country, because the expression of the national heart may be found under all the modes in which he has written, that he is entitled to be considered a poet essentially Polish. His PRELUDES, his NOCTURNES, his SCHERZOS, his CONCERTOS, his shortest as well as his longest compositions, are all filled with the national sensibility, expressed indeed in different degrees, modified and varied in a thousand ways, but always bearing the same character. An eminently subjective author, Chopin has given the same life to all his productions, animated all his works with his own spirit. All his writings are thus linked by a marked unity. Their beauties as well as their defects may be traced to the same order of emotions, to peculiar modes of feeling. The reproduction of the feelings of his people, idealized and elevated through his own subjective genius, is an essential requisite for the national poet who desires that the heart of his country should vibrate in unison with his own strains.

By the analogies of words and images, we should like to render it possible for our readers to comprehend the exquisite yet irritable sensibility peculiar to ardent yet susceptible hearts, to haughty yet deeply wounded souls. We cannot flatter ourselves that in the cold realm of words we have been able to give any idea of such ethereal odorous flames. In comparison with the vivid and delicious excitement produced by other arts, words always appear poor, cold, and arid, so that the assertion seems just: "that of all modes of expressing sentiments, words are the most insufficient." We cannot flatter ourselves with having attained in our descriptions the exceeding delicacy of touch, necessary to sketch that which Chopin has painted with hues so ethereal. All is subtle in his compositions, even the source of excitement, of passion; all open, frank, primitive impressions disappear in them; before they meet the eye, they have passed through the prism of an exacting, ingenious, and fertile imagination, and it has become difficult if not impossible to resolve them again into their primal elements. Acuteness of discernment is required to understand, delicacy to describe them. In seizing such refined impressions with the keenest discrimination, in embodying them with infinite art, Chopin has proved himself an artist of the highest order. It is only after long and patient study, after having pursued his sublimated ideas through their multiform ramifications, that we learn to admire sufficiently, to comprehend aright, the genius with which he has rendered his subtle thoughts visible and palpable, without once blunting their edge, or ever congealing their fiery flow.

He was so entirely filled with the sentiments whose most perfect types he believed he had known in his own youth, with the ideas which it alone pleased him to confide to art; he contemplated art so invariably from the same point of view, that his artistic preferences could not fail to be influenced by his early impressions. In the great models and CHEFS-D'OEUVRE, he only sought that which was in correspondence with his own soul. That which stood in relation to it pleased him; that which resembled it not, scarcely obtained justice from him. Uniting in himself the frequently incompatible qualities of passion and grace he possessed great accuracy of judgment, and preserved himself from all petty partiality, but he was but slightly attracted by the greatest beauties, the highest merits, when they wounded any of the phases of his poetic conceptions. Notwithstanding the high admiration which he entertained for the works of Beethoven, certain portions of them always seemed to him too rudely sculptured; their structure was too athletic to please him, their wrath seemed to him too tempestuous, their passion too overpowering, the lion-marrow which fills every member of his phases was matter too substantial for his tastes, and the Raphaelic and Seraphic profiles which are wrought into the midst of the nervous and powerful creations of this great genius, were to him almost painful from the force of the cutting contrast in which they are frequently set.