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Life of Chopin

Franz Lizst

Section 11 of 19 - Table of Contents
With what exultant feelings of just pride may the friend and
artist remember a career in which there are no jarring
dissonances; no contradictions, for which he is forced to claim
indulgence; no errors, whose source must be found in palliation
of their existence; no extreme, to be accounted for as the
consequence of "excess of cause." How sweet it is to be able to
name one who has fully proved that it is not only apathetic
beings whom no fascination can attract, no illusion betray, who
are able to limit themselves within the strict routine of honored
and honorable laws, who may justly claim that elevation of soul,
which no reverse subdues, and which is never found in
contradiction with its better self! Doubly dear and doubly
honored must the memory of Chopin, in this respect, ever remain!
Dear to the friends and artists who have known him in his
lifetime, dear to the unknown friends who shall learn to love him
through his poetic song, as well as to the artists who, in
succeeding him, shall find their glory in being worthy of him!

The character of Chopin, in none of its numerous folds, concealed
a single movement, a single impulse, which was not dictated by
the nicest sense of honor, the most delicate appreciation of
affection. Yet no nature was ever more formed to justify
eccentricity, whims, and abrupt caprices. His imagination was
ardent, his feelings almost violent, his physical organization
weak, irritable and sickly. Who can measure the amount of
suffering arising from such contrasts? It must have been bitter,
but he never allowed it to be seen! He kept the secret of his
torments, he veiled them from all eyes under the impenetrable
serenity of a haughty resignation.

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.
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