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Life of Chopin

Franz Lizst

Section 10 of 19 - Table of Contents
CHAPTER V.

The Lives of Artists--Pure Fame of Chopin--Reserve--Classic and
Romantic Art-Language of the Sclaves--Chopin's Love of Home
Memories.



A natural curiosity is generally felt to know something of the
lives of men who have consecrated their genius to embellish noble
feelings through works of art, through which they shine like
brilliant meteors in the eyes of the surprised and delighted
crowd. The admiration and sympathy awakened by the compositions
of such men, attach immediately to their own names, which are at
once elevated as symbols of nobility and greatness, because the
world is loath to believe that those who can express high
sentiments with force, can themselves feel ignobly. The objects
of this benevolent prejudice, this favorable presumption, are
expected to justify such suppositions by the high course of life
which they are required to lead. When it is seen that the poet
feels with such exquisite delicacy all that which it is so sweet
to inspire; that he divines with such rapid intuition all that
pride, timidity, or weariness struggles to hide; that he can
paint love as youth dreams it, but as riper years despair to
realize it; when such sublime situations seem to be ruled by his
genius, which raises itself so calmly above the calamities of
human destiny, always finding the leading threads by which the
most complicated knots in the tangled skein of life may be
proudly and victoriously unloosed; when the secret modulations of
the most exquisite tenderness, the most heroic courage, the most
sublime simplicity, are known to be subject to his command,--it
is most natural that the inquiry should be made if this wondrous
divination springs from a sincere faith in the reality of the
noble feelings portrayed, or whether its source is to be found in
an acute perception of the intellect, an abstract comprehension
of the logical reason.

The question in what the life led by men so enamored of beauty
differs from that of the common multitude, is then earnestly
asked. This high poetic disdain,--how did it comport itself when
struggling with material interests? These ineffable emotions of
ethereal love,--how were they guarded from the bitterness of
petty cares, from that rapidly growing and corroding mould which
usually stifles or poisons them? How many of such feelings were
preserved from that subtle evaporation which robs them of their
perfume, that gradually increasing inconstancy which lulls us
until we forget to call the dying emotions to account? Those who
felt such holy indignation,--were they indeed always just? Those
who exalted integrity,--were they always equitable? Those who
sung of honor,--did they never stoop? Those who so admired
fortitude,--have they never compromised with their own weakness?

A deep interest is also felt in ascertaining how those to whom
the task of sustaining our faith in the nobler sentiments through
art has been intrusted, have conducted themselves in external
affairs, where pecuniary gain is only to be acquired at the
expense of delicacy, loyalty, or honor. Many assert that the
nobler feelings exist only in the works of art. When some
unfortunate occurrence seems to give a deplorable foundation to
the words of such mockers, with what avidity they name the most
exquisite conceptions of the poet, "vain phantoms!" How they
plume themselves upon their own wisdom in having advocated the
politic doctrine of an astute, yet honeyed hypocrisy; how they
delight to speak of the perpetual contradiction between words and
deeds!....With what cruel joy they detail such occurrences, and
cite such examples in the presence of those unsteady restless
souls, who are incited by their youthful aspirations and by the
depression and utter loss of happy confidence which such a
conviction would entail upon them, to struggle against a distrust
so blighting! When such wavering spirits are engaged in the
bitter combat with the harsh alternatives of life, or tempted at
every turn by its insinuating seductions, what a profound
discouragement seizes upon them when they are induced to believe
that the hearts devoted to the most sublime thoughts, the most
deeply initiated in the most delicate susceptibilities, the most
charmed by the beauty of innocence, have denied, by their acts,
the sincerity of their worship for the noble themes which they
have sung as poets! With what agonizing doubts are they not
filled by such flagrant contradictions! How much is their anguish
increased by the jeering mockery of those who repeat: "Poetry is
only that which might have been"--and who delight in blaspheming
it by their guilty negations! Whatever may be the human short-
comings of the gifted, believe the truths they sing! Poetry is
more than the gigantic shadow of our own imagination,
immeasurably increased, and projected upon the flying plane of
the Impossible. POETRY and REALITY are not two incompatible
elements, destined to move on together without commingling.
Goethe himself confesses this. In speaking of a contemporary
writer he says: "that having lived to create poems, he had also
made his life a Poem." (Er lebte dichtend, und dichtete lebend.)
Goethe was himself too true a poet not to know that Poetry only
is, because its eternal Reality throbs in the noble impulses of
the human heart.

We have once before remarked that "genius imposes its own
obligations." [Footnote: Upon Paganini, after his death.] If the
examples of cold austerity and of rigid disinterestedness are
sufficient to awaken the admiration of calm and reflective
natures, whence shall more passionate and mobile organizations,
to whom the dullness of mediocrity is insipid, who naturally seek
honor or pleasure, and who are willing to purchase the object of
their desires at any price--form their models? Such temperaments
easily free themselves from the authority of their seniors. They
do not admit their competency to decide. They accuse them of
wishing to use the world only for the profit of their own dead
passions, of striving to turn all to their own advantage, of
pronouncing upon the effects of causes which they do not
understand, of desiring to promulgate laws in spheres to which
nature has denied them entrance. They will not receive answers
from their lips, but turn to others to resolve their doubts; they
question those who have drunk deeply from the boiling springs of
grief, bursting from the riven clefts in the steep cliffs upon
the top of which alone the soul seeks rest and light. They pass
in silence by the still cold gravity of those who practice the
good, without enthusiasm for the beautiful. What leisure has
ardent youth to interpret their gravity, to resolve their chill
problems? The throbbings of its impetuous heart are too rapid to
allow it to investigate the hidden sufferings, the mystic
combats, the solitary struggles, which may be detected even in
the calm eye of the man who practices only the good. Souls in
continual agitation seldom interpret aright the calm simplicity
of the just, or the heroic smiles of the stoic. For them
enthusiasm and emotion are necessities. A bold image persuades
them, a metaphor leads them, tears convince them, they prefer the
conclusions of impulse, of intuition, to the fatigue of logical
argument. Thus they turn with an eager curiosity to the poets and
artists who have moved them by their images, allured them by
their metaphors, excited them by their enthusiasm. They demand
from them the explanation, the purpose of this enthusiasm, the
secret of this beauty!

When distracted by heart-rending events, when tortured by intense
suffering, when feeling and enthusiasm seem to be but a heavy and
cumbersome load which may upset the life-boat if not thrown
overboard into the abyss of forgetfulness; who, when menaced with
utter shipwreck after a long struggle with peril, has not evoked
the glorious shades of those who have conquered, whose thoughts
glow with noble ardor, to inquire from them how far their
aspirations were sincere, how long they preserved their vitality
and truth? Who has not exerted an ingenious discernment to
ascertain how much of the generous feeling depicted was only for
mental amusement, a mere speculation; how much had really become
incorporated with the habitual acts of life? Detraction is never
idle in such cases; it seizes eagerly upon the foibles, the
neglect, the faults of those who have been degraded by any
weakness: alas, it omits nothing! It chases its prey, it
accumulates facts only to distort them, it arrogates to itself
the right of despising the inspiration to which it will grant no
authority or aim but to furnish amusement, denying it any claim
to guide our actions, our resolutions, our refusal, our consent!
Detraction knows well how to winnow history! Casting aside all
the good grain, it carefully gathers all the tares, to scatter
the black seed over the brilliant pages in which the purest
desires of the heart, the noblest dreams of the imagination are
found; and with the irony of assumed victory, demands what the
grain is worth which only germinates dearth and famine? Of what
value the vain words, which only nourish sterile feelings? Of
what use are excursions into realms in which no real fruit can
ever be gathered? of what possible importance are emotions and
enthusiasm, which always end in calculations of interest,
covering only with brilliant veil the covert struggles of egotism
and venal self-interest?

With how much arrogant derision men given to such detraction,
contrast the noble thoughts of the poet, with his unworthy acts!
The high compositions of the artist, with his guilty frivolity!
What a haughty superiority they assume over the laborious merit
of the men of guileless honesty, whom they look upon as
crustacea, sheltered from temptation by the immobility of weak
organizations, as well as over the pride of those, who, believing
themselves superior to such temptations, do not, they assert,
succeed even as well as themselves in repudiating the pursuit of
material well being, the gratification of vanity, or the pleasure
of immediate enjoyment! What an easy triumph they win over the
hesitation, the doubt, the repugnance of those who would fain
cling to a belief in the possibility of the union of vivid
feelings, passionate impressions, intellectual gifts, imaginative
temperaments, with high integrity, pure lives, and courses of
conduct in perfect harmony with poetic ideals!

It is therefore impossible not to feel the deepest sadness when
we meet with any fact which shows us the poet disobedient to the
inspiration of the Muses, those guardian angels of the man of
genius, who would willingly teach him to make of his own life the
most beautiful of poems. What disastrous doubts in the minds of
others, what profound discouragements, what melancholy apostasies
are induced by the faltering steps of the man of genius! And yet
it would be profanity to confound his errors in the same
anathema, hurled against the base vices of meanness, the
shameless effrontery of low crime! It would be sacrilege! If the
acts of the poet have sometimes denied the spirit of his song,
have not his songs still more powerfully denied his acts? May not
the limited influence of his private actions have been far more
than counterbalanced by the germs of creative virtues, scattered
profusely through his eloquent writings? Evil is contagious, but
good is truly fruitful! The poet, even while forcing his inner
convictions to give way to his personal interest, still
acknowledges and ennobles the sentiments which condemn himself;
such sentiments attain a far wider influence through his works
than can be exerted by his individual acts. Are not the number of
spirits which have been calmed, consoled, edified, through these
works, far greater than the number of those who have been injured
by the errors of his private life? Art is far more powerful than
the artist. His creations have a life independent of his
vacillating will; for they are revelations of the "immutable
beauty!" More durable than himself, they pass on from generation
to generation; let us hope that they may, through the blessings
of their widely spread influence, contain a virtual power of
redemption for the frequent errors of their gifted authors. If it
be indeed true that many of those who have immortalized their
sensibility and their aspirations, by robing them in the garb of
surpassing eloquence, have, nevertheless, stifled these high
aspirations, abused these quick sensibilities,--how many have
they not confirmed, strengthened and encouraged to pursue a noble
course, through the works created by their genius! A generous
indulgence towards them would be but justice! It is hard to be
forced to claim simple justice for them; unpleasant to be
constrained to defend those whom we wish to be admired, to excuse
those whom we wish to see venerated!
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