exquisite sensibility, delicate insight, proud reserve and
brooding world-sorrow of Frederic Chopin were the
inheritance of mother to son. This mother's mind was
saturated with the wrongs her people had endured: she
herself had suffered every contumely, for where chance
had caused fact to falter, imagination had filled the
void 33 33
It is easy to say that Chopin's was an abnormal nature,
and of course it was, but when disease divides this world
from another only by the thinnest veil, the mind has
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
been known to see things with a clearness and vividness
never before attained. With Chopin the strands of life
were often taut to the breaking-point, but ere they
snapped, their vibration gave forth to us some exquisite
harmonies 33 33
Curiously enough, this power to see and do is often the
possession of dying men. The life flares up in a flame
before it goes out forever. The passion of the consump-
tive Camille, as portrayed by Dumas, is typical no
healthy woman ever loved with that same intense,
eager and almost vindictive desire. It was a race with
Death 33 33
Perfect health brings unconsciousness of body, and
disease that almost relieves the spirit of this weight of
flesh produces the same results. Again we have the Law
of Antithesis.
That such a youth as Frederic Chopin should seek in
music a surcease from his world-sorrow is very natural.
A stricken people turns to music; it forms a necessary
part of all religious observance, and the dirge of mourn-
ers, the wail of the " keener," and the songs of the
banshee evolve naturally into being wherever the heart
is sore oppressed. It was the slave-songs that made
slavery bearable ; and in the long ago, exiles in Babylon
found a solemn joy by singing the songs of Zion. Chopin
drank in the songs of Poland with his mother's milk,
and while yet a child began to give them voice in his
own way.
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
In the meantime his father's fortunes had mended a bit,
and the family had moved to Warsaw, where Nicholas
Chopin was Professor of Languages at the Lyceum. The
tide of the office fills the mouth in a very satisfying way,
but the emoluments attached hardly afforded such a
gratification S3 53
In Warsaw there was much misery, for the plunderer had
worked conscription and seizure to its furthest limit.
Want and destitution were on every hand, but still this
brave people maintained their University and clung to
its traditions. The family of the Professor of Languages
consisted of himself, wife, three daughters and the son
Frederic. Their income for several years was not over
fifteen dollars a month, but still they managed to main-
tain an appearance of decency, and by the help of the
public library, the free museum and the open-air
concerts, they kept abreast of the times in literature,
art and music.
There was absolute economy required, every particle of
food was saved, and when cast-off dresses were sent
from the home of the Count it was a godsend for the
mother and girls, who measured and patched and
pieced, making garments for themselves, and for Fred-
eric as well ; so while their raiment was not gaudy nor
expressed in fancy, it served.
Chopin once said to George Sand, " I never can think
of my mother without her knitting-needles I " And
George Sand has recorded, " Frederic never had but
FREDERIC CHOPIN
one passion and that was his mother." ^ Into all of her
knitting this mother's flying needles worked much love.
The entire household was one of mutual service, and
gentle, trusting affection. The weekly letters of Chopin
to his mother from Paris, and the cold sweat on his
forehead at the thought of his parents knowing of his
relationship with George Sand, are credit-marks to his
character. There is a sweet recompense in mutual
deprivation where trials and difficulties only serve to
cement the affections ; and who shall say how much the
wondrous blending of strength and delicacy in the music
of Chopin is due to the memory of those early days of
toil and trial, of strength and forbearance, of hope and
love? & 33
To be born into such a family is a great blessing. The
value of the environment is shown in that all three of
the sisters became distinguished in literature. Two of
them married men of intellect, wealth and worth, and
through the collaboration of these sisters, books were
produced that did for the plain people of Poland what
Harriet Martineau's books on sociology did for the
people of England. Frederic played and practised at the
Lyceum where his father taught, and the ambition of
his parents was that he should grow up and take the
place of Professor of Music in the Lyceum. Adalbert
Zevyny, one of the leading pianists in the city, became
attracted to the boy and took him as a pupil, without
pay 33 33
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
The teacher soon became a little boastful of his pre-
cocious pupil, and when there came a public concert
for the benefit of the poor, we find reference made to
Chopin thus, "A child not yet eight years of age played,
and connoisseurs say he promises to replace Mozart."
In reality the boy was nearer twelve than eight, but
his size and looks suggested to the management the
idea of plagiarizing, in advance, our honored country-
man, Phineas T. Barnum. Hence the announcement on
the programs.
But now the nobility of the neighborhood began to send
carriages for the fair-haired lad, so he could play for
their invited guests. Then came snug little honorariums
that soon replaced his patched-up wardrobe for some-
thing more fashionable.
Frederic took all the applause quite as a matter of
course, and on one occasion, after he had played divinely,
he asked a proud lady this question, " How do you like
my new collar? "
He was to the manner born, and the gentle blood of his
mother formed him as a fit companion for aristocrats 33
These occasional musicales at the houses of the great
made money matters easier, and Frederic began to take
lessons from Joseph Eisner, who taught him the science
of composition, and introduced him into the deeper
mysteries of music-making. Eisner, it was, more than
any other man, who forced the truth upon Chopin that
he must play to satisfy himself, and in composition be
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
his own most exacting critic. In other words, Eisner
developed and strengthened in Chopin the artistic
conscience that impulse which causes an artist to
scorn doing anything save his best.
From little excursions to neighboring towns and country
houses about Warsaw, Chopin now ventured farther
away from home, chaperoned by his friend, Prince
Radziwill. He visited Berlin, Venice, Prague, Heidel-
berg, and mingled on an absolute equality with the
nobility. If they had titles, he had talents. And his
talents often made their decorations sing small.
His modesty was witching, and while in public concerts
his playing was not pronounced enough to capture the
gallery, yet in small gatherings he won all hearts, and
the fact that he played his own compositions made him
an added object of enthusiasm to the elect. Chopin
arrived in Paris when he was twenty-two years of age.
It was not his intention to remain more than a few
weeks, but Paris was to be his home for eighteen years
and then Pere la Chaise.
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
WOMAN who beholds her thirtieth birthday
in sight, and girlhood gone, is approaching a
climacteric in her career. Flaubert has named
twenty-nine as the eventful year in the life of
woman, and thirty-three for men. Every normal woman
craves love and tenderness these are her God-given
right. If they have not come to her by the time the
bloom is fading from her cheeks, there is danger of her
reaching out and clutching for them. The strongest
instinct in young girls is self-protection they fight on
the defensive. But at thirty, women have been known to
grow a trifle anxious, just as did the Sabine women who
dispatched a messenger to the Romans asking this
question, " How soon does the program begin? "
And thus are conditions reversed, for it is the youth of
twenty or so who seeks conquest with fiery soul. Alex-
ander was only nineteen when he sighed for more worlds
to conquer. He did n't have to wait long before he found
that this one had conquered him. Youth considers itself
immortal, and its powers without limit, but as a man
approaches thirty he grows economical of his resources
and parsimonious of his emotions. Men of thirty, or so,
are apt to be coy.
And so one might say that it is around thirty that for the
first time the man and the woman meet on an equality,
without sham, shame or pretense. Before that time the
average woman abounds in affectation and untruth;
the man is absurdly aggressive and full of foolish flattery.
92
FREDERIC CHOPIN
<J As to the question, " Should women propose? " the
answer is, " Yes, certainly, and they do when they are
twenty-nine."
Aurore Dudevant saw her thirtieth birthday looming on
the horizon of her life. Nine years before she had been
married to an ex-army-officer, who dyed his whiskers
purple. Aurore had been a dutiful wife, intent for the
first few years on filling her husband's heart and home
with joy. She had failed in this, and the proof of failure
lay in that he much preferred his dogs, guns and horses
to her society. For days he would absent himself on his
hunting excursions, and at home he did not have the
tact to hide the fact that he was awfully bored.
Thackeray, once for all, has given us a picture of the
heavy dragoon with a soul for dogs one to whom all
music, save the bay of a fox-hound, makes its appeal in
vain. Aurore detested dogs for dogs' sake, yet she
rode horses astride with a daring that made her hus-
band's bloodshot eyes bulge in alarm. He did n't much
care how fast and hard she rode at the fences and over
the ditches, but he was supposed to follow her, and this
he did not care to do. He had reached an age when a
man is mindful of the lime in his bones, and his 'cross-
country riding was mostly a matter of memory and
imagination, and best done around the convivial table.
*I Aurore was putting him to a test, that 's all. She was
proving to him that she could meet him on his own
preserve, give him choice of weapons, and make him
93
FREDERIC CHOPIN
cry for mercy. t[ Her bent was literature, with music,
science and art as side-lines. She read Montaigne,
Rochefoucald, Racine and Moliere, and a modern by
the name of Alfred de Musset, and quoted her authors
at inconvenient times. She flashed quotations and epi-
grams upon the doughty dragoon in a way he could
neither fend nor parry. At other times she was deeply
religious and tearfully penitent.
In fact, she was living on a skimped allowance of love,
and had never received the attention that a good
woman deserves. Her chains were galling her. She sighed
for Paris forty miles away Paris and a career.
The epigrams were coming faster, shot in a sort of
frenzy and fever. And when she asked her liege for leave
to go to Paris, he granted her prayer, and agreed to give
her ten dollars a week allowance.
She grabbed at the offer, and he bade her Godspeed and
good riddance.
So leaving her two children behind, until such a time as
she could provide a home for them, with scanty luggage
and light heart and purse, she started away.
Other women have gone up to Paris from country
towns, too, and the chances are as one to ten thousand
that the maelstrom will sweep them into hades.
But Madame Dudevant was different in two years
she had won her way to literary fame, and was com-
manding the jealous admiration of the best writers of
Paris. Her first work was a collaboration with Jules
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
Sandeau in a novel. Every woman who ever wrote well
began by collaborating with a man. Sandeau had
formerly come from Nohant, and how much he had to
do with Madame Dudevant's breaking loose from her
homes-ties no one knows. Anyway, the second novel was
written by the Madame alone, and as a tribute to her
friend the name " George Sand " was placed upon the
title-page as author. Jules Sandeau, all-' round hack-
writer and critic, was greatly pleased by the compli-
ment of having his name anglicized and printed on the
title-page of " Indiana," but later he was not so proud
of it. George Sand soon proved herself to be a bigger
man than Sandeau.
She was not handsome, either in face or in form. She was
inclined to be stout was rather short and her com-
plexion olive. But she lured with her eyes great
sphinx-like eyes of hazel-brown that looked men
through and through. Liszt has told us that " she had
eyes like a cow," which is not so bad as Thomas
Carlyle's remark that George Eliot had a face like a
horse. George Sand was silent when other women talked,
and her look told in a half-proud, half-sad way that
she knew all they knew, and all she herself knew beside.
d Without going into the issue as to what George Sand
was not, let us frankly admit that pain, deprivation,
misunderstanding and maternity had taught her many
things not found in books, and that she looked at Fate
out of her wide-open eyes with a gaze that did not blink.
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
She was wise beyond the lot of women. I was just going
to say she was a genius, but I remember the remark of the
DeGoncourts to the effect that, " There are no women
of genius women of genius are men." Possibly the
point could be covered by saying George Sand had a
man's head and a woman's heart.
Women did not like her, yet what other woman was ever
so honored by woman as was George Sand in those two
matchless sonnets addressed to her by Elizabeth Barrett
Browning}
The amazing energy of George Sand, her finely flowing
sentences all charged with daring satire and insight
into the heart of things made her work sought by
readers and publishers. Her pen brought her all the
money she needed; and she had secured a divorce from
' That Man," and now had her two children with her
in Paris. That she could do her literary work and still
attend to her manifold social duties must ever mark her
as a phenomenon. She was no mere adventuress. That
she was systematic, orderly and abstemious in her
habits must go without saying, otherwise her vitality
would not have held out and allowed her to attend the
funerals of nearly all her retainers.
In throwing overboard the Grub Street Sandeau for
Franz Liszt, Madame Dudevant certainly showed dis-
crimination; but in retaining the name of " Sand," she
paid a delicate compliment to the man who first intro-
duced her to the world of art. Liszt was too strong a
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
man to remain long captive he refused to supply the
doglike and abject devotion which Aurore always
demanded. Then came Michael de Bourges the learned
counsel, Calmatto the mezzo tin ter, Delacroix the artist,
De Musset the poet, and Chopin the musician.
It was in the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty-nine, that
Chopin and Sand first met at a parlor musicale, where
Chopin was taken by Liszt, half against his will, simply
because George Sand was to be there.
Chopin did not want to meet her.
All Paris had rung with the story of how she and
De Musset had gone together to Venice, and then in
less than a year had quarreled and separated. Both
made good copy of the " poetic interval," as George
Sand called it. Chopin was not a stickler for conven-
tionalities, but George Sand's history, for him, proved
her to be coarse and devoid of all the finer feeling that
we prize in women.
Chopin had no fear of her not he only he did not
care to add to his circle of acquaintances one so lacking
in inward grace and delicacy.
He played at the musicale it was all very informal
and George Sand pushed her way up through the
throng that stood about the piano and looked at the
handsome boy as he played she looked at him with her
big, hazel, cow eyes, steadfastly, yearningly, and he
glancing up, saw the eyes were filled with tears.
When the playing ceased, she still stood looking at the
97
FREDERIC CHOPIN
great musician, and then she leaned over the piano and
whispered, " Your playing makes me live over again
every pain that has ever wrung my heart; and every
joy, too, that I have ever known is mine again." 3&
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
FTER their first meeting, when Chopin played
at a musicale, George Sand was apt to be
there too they often came together. She
was five years older than he, and looked fif-
teen, for his slight figure and delicate, boyish face gave
him the appearance of youth unto the very last.
In letters to Madame Mariana, George Sand often
refers to Chopin as " My Little One," and when some
one spoke of him as " The Chopinetto," the name
seemed to stick.
That she was the man in the partnership is very evident.
He really needed some one to look after him, provide
mustard-plasters and run for the camphor and hot-water
bottle. He was the one who did the weeping and pouting,
and had the " nerves " and made the scenes; while she,
on such occasions, would viciously roll a cigarette, swear
under her breath, console and pooh-pooh.
Liszt has told us how, on one occasion, she had gone out
at night for a storm-walk, and Chopin, being too ill, or
disinclined to go, remained at home. Upon her return
she found him in a conniption, he having composed a
prelude to ward off an attack of cold feet, and was now
ready to scream through fear that something had
happened to her. As she entered the door he arose,
staggered and fell before her in a fainting fit.
A whole literature has grown up around the relations of
Chopin and George Sand, and the lady in the case has,
herself, set forth her brief with painstaking detail in her
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
" Histoire de Ma Vie." With De Musset, George Sand
had to reckon on dealing with a writing man, and his
accounts of " The Little White Blackbird " had taught
her caution. Thereafter she abjured the litterateurs,
excepting when in her old age she allowed Gustave
Flaubert to come within her sacred circle but her
friendship with Flaubert was placidly platonic, as all
the world knows. And so were her relations with Chopin,
provided we accept her version as gospel fact.
George Sand lacked the frankness of Rousseau; but I
think we should be willing to accept the lady's state-
ments, for she was present and really the only one in
possession of the facts, excepting, of course, Chopin,
and he was not a writer. He could express himself only
at the keyboard, and the piano is no graphophone, for
which let us all be duly thankful. So we are without
Chopin's side of the story. We, however, have some
vigorous writing by a man by the name of Hadow 33
Mr. Hadow enters the lists panoplied with facts, and
declares that the friendship was strictly platonic, being
on the woman's side of a purely maternal order. Chopin
was sick and friendless, and Madame Dudevant, know-
ing his worth to the art world, succored him nursing
him as a Sister of Charity might, sacrificing herself, and
even risking her reputation in order to restore him to
life and health.
And this view of the case I am quite willing to accept.
Mr. Hadow is no joker, like that man who has recently
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
written an appreciation of Xantippe, showing that the
wife of Socrates was one of the most patient women who
ever lived, and only at times resorted to heroic means
in order to drive her husband out into the world of
thought. She willingly sacrificed her own good name
that another might have literary life.
Hadow has gotten all the facts together and then dis-
passionately drawn his conclusions; and these con-
clusions are eminently complimentary to all parties
concerned 33 33
It was only a few months after Chopin met George Sand
that he was attacked with a peculiar hacking cough.
His friends were sure it was consumption, and a leading
physician gave it as his opinion that if the patient spent
the approaching Winter in Paris, it would be death in
March 33 33
The facts being brought to the notice of George Sand,
she had but one thought to save the life of this young
man. He was too ill to decide what was best to do, and
was never able by temperament to take the initiative,
anyway, so this strong and capable woman, forgetful of
self and her own interests, made all the arrangements
and took him to the Isle of Majorca in the Mediter-
ranean Sea. There she cared for him alone as she might
for a babe, for six long, weary months. They lived in the
cells of an old monastery at Valdemosa, away up on the
mountainside overlooking the sea. Here where the roses
bloomed the whole year through, surrounded by groves
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
of orange-trees, shut in by vines and flowers, with no
society save that of the sacristan and an aged woman
servant, she nursed the death-stricken man back to life
and hope.
To better encourage him she sent for and surprised him
with his piano, which had to be carried up the mountain
on the backs of mules. In the quiet cloisters she cared
for him with motherly tenderness, and there he learned
again to awake the slumbering echoes with divine music.
Several of his best pieces were composed at Majorca
during his convalescence, where the soft semi-tropical
breeze laved his cheek, the birds warbled him their
sweetest carols, and away down below, the sea, mother
of all, sang her ceaseless lullaby. When they returned to
France the following Spring, M. Dude van t had accom-
modatingly vacated the family residence at Nohant in
favor of his wife. It was here she took the convalescent
Chopin. He was charmed with the rambling old house,
its walled-in gardens with their arbors of clustering
grapes, and the green meadows stretching down to the
water's edge, where the little river ran its way to the
ocean 3& 33
Back of the house was a great forest of mighty trees,
beneath whose thick shade the sun's rays never entered,
and a half-mile away arose the spire of the village
church. There were no neighbors, save a cheery old
priest, and the simple villagers who made respectful
obeisance as they passed.
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
Here it was that Matthew Arnold came to pay his
tribute to genius, also Liszt and the fair Countess
d'Agoult, Delacroix, Renan, Lamennais, Lamartine, and
so many others of the great and excellent. Chopin was
enchanted with the place, and refused to go back to
Paris. Madame Dudevant insisted, and explained to him
that she took him to Majorca to spend the Winter, but
she had no intention or thought of caring for him
longer than the few months that might be required to
restore him to health. But he cried and clung to her
with such half -childish fright that she had not the heart
to send him away.
The summer months passed and the leaves began to
turn scarlet and gold, and he only consented to return
to Paris on her agreeing to go with him. So they returned
together, and had rooms not so very far apart.
He went back sturdily to his music-teaching, with an
occasional musicale, yet gave but one public concert in
the space of ten years.
The exquisite quality of Chopin's playing appealed only
to the sacred few, but his piano scores were slowly find-
ing sale, through the advertisement they received by
being played by Liszt, Tausig and others. Yet the
critics almost uniformly condemned his work as bizarre
and erratic.
Each Summer he spent at lovely Nohant, and there
found the rest and quiet which got nerves back to the
norm and allowed him to go on with his work. So passed
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
the years away. Of this we are very sure no taint
exists on the record of Chopin excepting possibly his
relationship with George Sand. That he endeavored to
win her full heart's love, for the purpose of honorable
marriage, Mr. Hadow is fully convinced. But when his
suit failed, after an eight years' courtship, and the
lover was discarded, he ceased to work. His heart was
broken ; he lingered on for two years, and then death
claimed him at the early age of forty years.
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FREDERIC CHOPIN
HERE is a tendency to judge a work of art by
its size. Thus the sculptor who does a
" heroic figure " is the man who looms large
to the average visitor at the art-gallery 5&
Chopin wrote no lengthy symphonies, oratorios or
operas. His music is poetry set to exquisite sounds.
Poetry is an ecstasy of the spirit, and ecstasies in their
very nature are not sustained moods.
The poetic mood is transient. A composition by Chopin
is a soul-ecstasy, like unto the singing of a lark.
No other man but Chopin should have been allowed to