Chapter II: Part I: The Man (2)

Chopin, a neurotic being, met the polyandrous Sand, a trampler on all the social and ethical conventions, albeit a woman of great gifts; repelled at first he gave way before the ardent passion she manifested toward him. She was his elder, so could veil the situation with the maternal mask, and she was the stronger intellect, more celebrated--Chopin was but a pianist in the eyes of the many--and so won by her magnetism the man she desired. Paris, artistic Paris, was full of such situations. Liszt protected the Countess d'Agoult, who bore him children, Cosima Von Bulow-Wagner among the rest. Balzac--Balzac, that magnificent combination of Bonaparte and Byron, pirate and poet--was apparently leading the life of a saint, but his most careful student, Viscount Spelboerch de Lovenjoul--whose name is veritably Balzac-ian--tells us some different stories; even Gustave Flaubert, the ascetic giant of Rouen, had a romance with Madame Louise Colet, a mediocre writer and imitator of Sand,--as was Countess d'Agoult, the Frankfort Jewess better known as "Daniel Stern,"--that lasted from 1846 to 1854, according to Emile Faguet. Here then was a medium which was the other side of good and evil, a new transvaluation of morals, as Nietzsche would say. Frederic deplored the union for he was theoretically a Catholic. Did he not once resent the visit of Liszt and a companion to his apartments when he was absent? Indeed he may be fairly called a moralist. Carefully reared in the Roman Catholic religion he died confessing that faith. With the exception of the Sand episode, his life was not an irregular one, He abhorred the vulgar and tried to conceal this infatuation from his parents.

This intimacy, however, did the pair no harm artistically, notwithstanding the inevitable sorrow and heart burnings at the close. Chopin had some one to look after him--he needed it--and in the society of this brilliant Frenchwoman he throve amazingly: his best work may be traced to Nohant and Majorca. She on her side profited also. After the bitterness of her separation from Alfred de Musset about 1833 she had been lonely, for the Pagello intermezzo was of short duration. The De Musset-Sand story was not known in its entirety until 1896. Again M. Spelboerch de Lovenjoul must be consulted, as he possessed a bundle of letters that were written by George Sand and M. Buloz, the editor of "La Revue des Deux Mondes," in 1858.

De Musset went to Venice with Sand in the fall of 1833. They had the maternal sanction and means supplied by Madame de Musset. The story gives forth the true Gallic resonance on being critically tapped. De Musset returned alone, sick in body and soul, and thenceforth absinthe was his constant solace. There had been references, vague and disquieting, of a Dr. Pagello for whom Sand had suddenly manifested one of her extraordinary fancies. This she denied, but De Musset's brother plainly intimated that the aggravating cause of his brother's illness had been the unexpected vision of Sand coquetting with the young medical man called in to prescribe for Alfred. Dr. Pagello in 1896 was interviewed by Dr. Cabanes of the Paris "Figaro" and here is his story of what had happened in 1833. This story will explain the later behavior of "la merle blanche" toward Chopin.

"One night George Sand, after writing three pages of prose full of poetry and inspiration, took an unaddressed envelope, placed therein the poetic declaration, and handed it to Dr. Pagello. He, seeing no address, did not, or feigned not, to understand for whom the letter was intended, and asked George Sand what he should do with it. Snatching the letter from his hands, she wrote upon the envelope: 'To the Stupid Pagello.' Some days afterward George Sand frankly told De Musset that henceforth she could be to him only a friend."

De Musset died in 1857 and after his death Sand startled Paris with "Elle et Lui," an obvious answer to "Confessions of a Child of the Age," De Musset's version--an uncomplimentary one to himself--of their separation. The poet's brother Paul rallied to his memory with "Lui et Elle," and even Louisa Colet ventured into the fracas with a trashy novel called "Lui." During all this mud-throwing the cause of the trouble calmly lived in the little Italian town of Belluno. It was Dr. Giuseppe Pagello who will go down in literary history as the one man that played Joseph to George Sand.

Now do you ask why I believe that Sand left Chopin when she was bored with him? The words "some days afterwards" are significant. I print the Pagello story not only because it is new, but as a reminder that George Sand in her love affairs was always the man. She treated Chopin as a child, a toy, used him for literary copy--pace Mr. Hadow!--and threw him over after she had wrung out all the emotional possibilities of the problem. She was true to herself even when she attempted to palliate her want of heart. Beware of the woman who punctuates the pages of her life with "heart" and "maternal feelings." "If I do not believe any more in tears it is because I saw thee crying!" exclaimed Chopin. Sand was the product of abnormal forces, she herself was abnormal, and her mental activity, while it created no permanent types in literary fiction, was also abnormal. She dominated Chopin, as she had dominated Jules Sandeau, Calmatta the mezzotinter, De Musset, Franz Liszt, Delacroix, Michel de Bourges--I have not the exact chronological order--and later Flaubert. The most lovable event in the life of this much loved woman was her old age affair--purely platonic--with Gustave Flaubert. The correspondence shows her to have been "maternal" to the last.

In the recently published "Lettres a l'etrangere" of Honore de Balzac, this about Sand is very apropos. A visit paid to George Sand at Nohant, in March 1838, brought the following to Madame Hanska:

It was rather well that I saw her, for we exchanged
confidences regarding Sandeau. I, who blamed her to the last
for deserting him, now feel only a deep compassion for her, as
you will have for me, when you learn with whom we have had
relations, she of love, I of friendship.

But she has been even more unhappy with Musset. So here she
is, in retreat, denouncing both marriage and love, because in
both she has found nothing but delusion.

I will tell you of her immense and secret devotion to these
two men, and you will agree that there is nothing in common
between angels and devils. All the follies she has committed
are claims to glory in the eyes of great and beautiful souls.
She has been the dupe of la Dorval, Bocage, Lamenais, etc.;
through the same sentiment she is the dupe of Liszt and Madame
d'Agoult.

So let us accept without too much questioning as did Balzac, a reader of souls, the Sand-Chopin partnership and follow its sinuous course until 1847.

Chopin met Sand at a musical matinee in 1837. Niecks throttles every romantic yarn about the pair that has been spoken or printed. He got his facts viva voce from Franchomme. Sand was antipathetic to Chopin but her technique for overcoming masculine coyness was as remarkable in its particular fashion as Chopin's proficiency at the keyboard. They were soon seen together, and everywhere. She was not musical, not a trained musician, but her appreciation for all art forms was highly sympathetic. Not a beautiful woman, being swarthy and rather heavy-set in figure, this is what she was, as seen by Edouard Grenier:--

She was short and stout, but her face attracted all my
attention, the eyes especially. They were wonderful eyes, a
little too close together, it may be, large, with full
eyelids, and black, very black, but by no means lustrous; they
reminded me of unpolished marble, or rather of velvet, and
this gave a strange, dull, even cold expression to her
countenance. Her fine eyebrows and these great placid eyes
gave her an air of strength and dignity which was not borne
out by the lower part of her face. Her nose was rather thick
and not over shapely. Her mouth was also rather coarse and her
chin small. She spoke with great simplicity, and her manners
were very quiet.

But she attracted with imperious power all that she met. Liszt felt this attraction at one time--and it is whispered that Chopin was jealous of him. Pouf! the woman who could conquer Franz Liszt in his youth must have been a sorceress. He, too, was versatile.

In 1838, Sand's boy Maurice being ill, she proposed a visit to Majorca. Chopin went with the party in November and full accounts of the Mediterranean trip, Chopin's illness, the bad weather, discomforts and all the rest may be found in the "Histoire de Ma Vie" by Sand. It was a time of torment. "Chopin is a detestable invalid," said Sand, and so they returned to Nohant in June 1839. They saw Genoa for a few days in May, but that is as far as Chopin ever penetrated into the promised land--Italy, at one time a passion with him. Sand enjoyed the subtle and truly feminine pleasure of again entering the city which six years before she had visited in company with another man, the former lover of Rachel.

Chopin's health in 1839 was a source of alarm to himself and his friends. He had been dangerously ill at Majorca and Marseilles. Fever and severe coughing proved to be the dread forerunners of the disease that killed him ten years later. He was forced to be very careful in his habits, resting more, giving fewer lessons, playing but little in private or public, and becoming frugal of his emotions. Now Sand began to cool, though her lively imagination never ceased making graceful, touching pictures of herself in the roles of sister of mercy, mother, and discreet friend, all merged into one sentimental composite. Her invalid was her one thought, and for an active mind and body like hers, it must have been irksome to submit to the caprices of a moody, ailing man. He composed at Nohant, and she has told us all about it; how he groaned, wrote and re-wrote and tore to pieces draft after draft of his work. This brings to memory another martyr to style, Gustave Flaubert, who for forty years in a room at Croisset, near Rouen, wrestled with the devils of syntax and epithet. Chopin was of an impatient, nervous disposition. All the more remarkable then his capacity for taking infinite pains. Like Balzac he was never pleased with the final "revise" of his work, he must needs aim at finishing touches. His letters at this period are interesting for the Chopinist but for the most part they consist of requests made to his pupils, Fontana, Gutmann and others, to jog the publishers, to get him new apartments, to buy him many things. Wagner was not more importunate or minatory than this Pole, who depended on others for the material comforts and necessities of his existence. Nor is his abuse of friends and patrons, the Leos and others, indicative of an altogether frank, sincere nature. He did not hesitate to lump them all as "pigs" and "Jews" if anything happened to jar his nerves. Money, money, is the leading theme of the Paris and Mallorean letters. Sand was a spendthrift and Chopin had often to put his hands in his pocket for her. He charged twenty francs a lesson, but was not a machine and for at least four months of the year he earned nothing. Hence his anxiety to get all he could for his compositions. Heaven-born geniuses are sometimes very keen in financial transactions, and indeed why should they not be?

In 1839 Chopin met Moscheles. They appeared together at St. Cloud, playing for the royal family. Chopin received a gold cup, Moscheles a travelling case. "The King gave him this," said the amiable Frederic, "to get the sooner rid of him." There were two public concerts in 1841 and 1842, the first on April 26 at Pleyel's rooms, the second on February 20 at the same hall. Niecks devotes an engrossing chapter to the public accounts and the general style of Chopin's playing; of this more hereafter. From 1843 to 1847 Chopin taught, and spent the vacations at Nohant, to which charming retreat Liszt, Matthew Arnold, Delacroix, Charles Rollinat and many others came. His life was apparently happy. He composed and amused himself with Maurice and Solange, the "terrible children" of this Bohemian household. There, according to reports, Chopin and Liszt were in friendly rivalry--are two pianists ever friendly?--Liszt imitating Chopin's style, and once in the dark they exchanged places and fooled their listeners. Liszt denied this. Another story is of one or the other working the pedal rods--the pedals being broken. This too has been laughed to scorn by Liszt. Nor could he recall having played while Viardot-Garcia sang out on the terrace of the chateau. Garcia's memory is also short about this event. Rollinat, Delacroix and Sand have written abundant souvenirs of Nohant and its distinguished gatherings, so let us not attempt to impugn the details of the Chopin legend, that legend which coughs deprecatingly as it points to its aureoled alabaster brow. De Lenz should be consulted for an account of this period; he will add the finishing touches of unreality that may be missing.

Chopin knew every one of note in Paris. The best salons were open to him. Some of his confreres have not hesitated to describe him as a bit snobbish, for during the last ten years of his life he was generally inaccessible. But consider his retiring nature, his suspicious Slavic temperament, above all his delicate health! Where one accuses him of indifference and selfishness there are ten who praise his unfaltering kindness, generosity and forbearance. He was as a rule a kind and patient teacher, and where talent was displayed his interest trebled. Can you fancy this Ariel of the piano giving lessons to hum-drum pupils! Playing in a charmed and bewitching circle of countesses, surrounded by the luxury and the praise that kills, Chopin is a much more natural figure, yet he gave lessons regularly and appeared to relish them. He had not much taste for literature. He liked Voltaire though he read but little that was not Polish--did he really enjoy Sand's novels?--and when asked why he did not compose symphonies or operas, answered that his metier was the piano, and to it he would stick. He spoke French though with a Polish accent, and also German, but did not care much for German music except Bach and Mozart. Beethoven--save in the C sharp minor and several other sonatas--was not sympathetic. Schubert he found rough, Weber, in his piano music, too operatic and Schumann he dismissed without a word. He told Heller that the "Carneval" was really not music at all. This remark is one of the curiosities of musical anecdotage.

But he had his gay moments when he would gossip, chatter, imitate every one, cut up all manner of tricks and, like Wagner, stand on his head. Perhaps it was feverish, agitated gayety, yet somehow it seemed more human than that eternal Thaddeus of Warsaw melancholy and regret for the vanished greatness and happiness of Poland--a greatness and happiness that never had existed. Chopin disliked letter writing and would go miles to answer one in person. He did not hate any one in particular, being rather indifferent to every one and to political events--except where Poland was concerned. Theoretically he hated Jews and Russians, yet associated with both. He was, like his music, a bundle of unreconciled affirmations and evasions and never could have been contented anywhere or with any one. Of himself he said that "he was in this world like the E string of a violin on a contrabass." This "divine dissatisfaction" led him to extremes: to the flouting of friends for fancied affronts, to the snubbing of artists who sometimes visited him. He grew suspicious of Liszt and for ten years was not on terms of intimacy with him although they never openly quarrelled.

The breach which had been very perceptibly widening became hopeless in 1847, when Sand and Chopin parted forever. A literature has grown up on the subject. Chopin never had much to say but Sand did; so did Chopin's pupils, who were quite virulent in their assertions that she killed their master. The break had to come. It was the inevitable end of such a friendship. The dynamics of free-love have yet to be formulated. This much we know: two such natures could never entirely cohere. When the novelty wore off the stronger of the two--the one least in love--took the initial step. It was George Sand who took it with Chopin. He would never have had the courage nor the will.

The final causes are not very interesting. Niecks has sifted all the evidence before the court and jury of scandal-mongers. The main quarrel was about the marriage of Solange Sand with Clesinger the sculptor. Her mother did not oppose the match, but later she resented Clesinger's actions. He was coarse and violent, she said, with the true mother-in-law spirit--and when Chopin received the young woman and her husband after a terrible scene at Nohant, she broke with him. It was a good excuse. He had ennuied her for several years, and as he had completed his artistic work on this planet and there was nothing more to be studied,--the psychological portrait was supposedly painted--Madame George got rid of him. The dark stories of maternal jealousy, of Chopin's preference for Solange, the visit to Chopin of the concierge's wife to complain of her mistress' behavior with her husband, all these rakings I leave to others. It was a triste affair and I do not doubt in the least that it undermined Chopin's feeble health. Why not! Animals die of broken hearts, and this emotional product of Poland, deprived of affection, home and careful attention, may well, as De Lenz swears, have died of heart-break. Recent gossip declares that Sand was jealous of Chopin's friendships--this is silly.

Mr. A. B. Walkley, the English dramatic critic, after declaring that he would rather have lived during the Balzac epoch in Paris, continues in this entertaining vein:

And then one might have had a chance of seeing George Sand in
the thick of her amorisms. For my part I would certainly
rather have met her than Pontius Pilate. The people who saw
her in her old age--Flaubert, Gautier, the Goncourts--have
left us copious records of her odd appearance, her perpetual
cigarette smoking, and her whimsical life at Nohant. But then
she was only an "extinct volcano;" she must have been much
more interesting in full eruption. Of her earlier career--the
period of Musset and Pagello--she herself told us something in
"Elle et Lui," and correspondence published a year or so ago
in the "Revue de Paris" told us more. But, to my mind, the
most fascinating chapter in this part of her history is the
Chopin chapter, covering the next decade, or, roughly
speaking, the 'forties. She has revealed something of this
time--naturally from her own point of view--in "Lucrezia
Floriana" (1847). For it is, of course, one of the most
notorious characteristics of George Sand that she invariably
turned her loves into "copy." The mixture of passion and
printer's ink in this lady's composition is surely one of the
most curious blends ever offered to the palate of the epicure.

But it was a blend which gave the lady an unfair advantage for
posterity. We hear too much of her side of the matter. This
one feels especially as regards her affair with Chopin. With
Musset she had to reckon a writer like herself; and against
her "Elle et Lui" we can set his "Confession d'un enfant du
siecle." But poor Chopin, being a musician, was not good at
"copy." The emotions she gave him he had to pour out in music,
which, delightful as sound, is unfortunately vague as a
literary "document." How one longs to have his full, true, and
particular account of the six months he spent with George Sand
in Majorca! M. Pierre Mille, who has just published in the
"Revue Bleue" some letters of Chopin (first printed, it seems,
in a Warsaw newspaper), would have us believe that the lady
was really the masculine partner. We are to understand that it
was Chopin who did the weeping, and pouting, and "scene"-making
while George Sand did the consoling, the pooh-poohing,
and the protecting. Liszt had already given us a
characteristic anecdote of this Majorca period. We see George
Sand, in sheer exuberance of health and animal spirits,
wandering out into the storm, while Chopin stays at home, to
have an attack of "nerves," to give vent to his anxiety (oh,
"artistic temperament"!) by composing a prelude, and to fall
fainting at the lady's feet when she returns safe and sound.
There is no doubt that the lady had enough of the masculine
temper in her to be the first to get tired. And as poor Chopin
was coughing and swooning most of the time, this is scarcely
surprising. But she did not leave him forthwith. She kept up
the pretence of loving him, in a maternal, protecting sort of
way, out of pity, as it were, for a sick child.

So much the published letters clearly show. Many of them are
dated from Nohant. But in themselves the letters are dull
enough. Chopin composed with the keyboard of a piano; with ink
and paper he could do little. Probably his love letters were
wooden productions, and George Sand, we know, was a fastidious
critic in that matter. She had received and written so many!
But any rate, Chopin did not write whining recriminations like
Mussel. His real view of her we shall never know--and, if you
like, you may say it is no business of ours. She once uttered
a truth about that (though not apropos of Chopin), "There are
so many things between two lovers of which they alone can be
the judges."

Chopin gave his last concert in Paris, February 16, 1848, at Pleyel's. He was ill but played beautifully. Oscar Commettant said he fainted in the artist's room. Sand and Chopin met but once again. She took his hand, which was "trembling and cold," but he escaped without saying a word. He permitted himself in a letter to Grzymala from London dated November 17-18, 1848, to speak of Sand. "I have never cursed any one, but now I am so weary of life that I am near cursing Lucrezia. But she suffers too, and suffers more because she grows older in wickedness. What a pity about Soli! Alas! everything goes wrong with the world!" I wonder what Mr. Hadow thinks of this reference to Sand!

"Soli" is Solange Sand, who was forced to leave her husband because of ill-treatment. As her mother once boxed Clesinger's ears at Nohant, she followed the example. In trying to settle the affair Sand quarrelled hopelessly with her daughter. That energetic descendant of "emancipated woman" formed a partnership, literary of course, with the Marquis Alfieri, the nephew of the Italian poet. Her salon was as much in vogue as her mother's, but her tastes were inclined to politics, revolutionary politics preferred. She had for associates Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Floquet, Taine, Herve, Weiss, the critic of the "Debats," Henri Fouquier and many others. She had the "curved Hebraic nose of her mother and hair coal-black." She died in her chateau at Montgivray and was buried March 20, 1899, at Nohant where, as my informant says, "her mother died of over-much cigarette smoking." She was a clever woman and wrote a book "Masks and Buffoons." Maurice Sand died in 1883. He was the son of his mother, who was gathered to her heterogeneous ancestors June 8, 1876.

In literature George Sand is a feminine pendant to Jean Jacques Rousseau, full of ill-digested, troubled, fermenting, social, political, philosophical and religious speculations and theories. She wrote picturesque French, smooth, flowing and full of color. The sketches of nature, of country life, have positive value, but where has vanished her gallery of Byronic passion-pursued women? Where are the Lelias, the Indianas, the Rudolstadts? She had not, as Mr. Henry James points out, a faculty for characterization. As Flaubert wrote her: "In spite of your great Sphinx eyes you have always seen the world as through a golden mist." She dealt in vague, vast figures, and so her Prince Karol in "Lucrezia Floriana," unquestionably intended for Chopin, is a burlesque--little wonder he was angered when the precious children asked him "Cher M. Chopin, have you read 'Lucrezia'? Mamma has put you in it." Of all persons Sand was pre-elected to give to the world a true, a sympathetic picture of her friend. She understood him, but she had not the power of putting him between the coversof a book. If Flaubert, or better still, Pierre Loti, could have known Chopin so intimately we should possess a memoir in which every vibration of emotion would be recorded, every shade noted, and all pinned with the precise adjective, the phrase exquisite.

III. ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND PERE LA CHAISE.

The remaining years of Chopin's life were lonely. His father died in 1844 of chest and heart complaint, his sister Emilia died of consumption--ill-omens these!--and shortly after, John Matuszynski died. Titus Woyciechowski was in far-off Poland on his estates and Chopin had but Grzymala and Fontana to confide in; they being Polish he preferred them, although he was diplomatic enough not to let others see this. Both Franchomme and Gutmann whispered to Niecks at different times that each was the particular soul, the alter ego, of Chopin. He appeared to give himself to his friends but it was usually surface affection. He had coaxing, coquettish ways, playful ways that cost him nothing when in good spirits. So he was "more loved than loving." This is another trait of the man, which, allied with his fastidiousness and spiritual brusquerie, made him difficult to decipher. The loss of Sand completed his misery and we find him in poor health when he arrived in London, for the second and last time, April 21, 1848.

Mr. A. J. Hipkins is the chief authority on the details of Chopin's visit to England. To this amiable gentleman and learned writer on pianos, Franz Hueffer, Joseph Bennett and Niecks are indebted for the most of their facts. From them the curious may learn all there is to learn. The story is not especially noteworthy, being in the main a record of ill-health, complainings, lamentations and not one signal artistic success.

War was declared upon Chopin by a part of the musical world. The criticism was compounded of pure malice and stupidity. Chopin was angered but little for he was too sick to care now. He went to an evening party but missed the Macready dinner where he was to have met Thackeray, Berlioz, Mrs. Procter and Sir Julius Benedict. With Benedict he played a Mozart duet at the Duchess of Sutherland's. Whether he played at court the Queen can tell; Niecks cannot. He met Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt and liked her exceedingly--as did all who had the honor of knowing her. She sided with him, woman-like, in the Sand affair--echoes of which had floated across the channel--and visited him in Paris in 1849. Chopin gave two matinees at the houses of Adelaide Kemble and Lord Falmouth--June 23 and July 7. They were very recherche, so it appears. Viardot-Garcia sang. The composer's face and frame were wasted by illness and Mr. Solomon spoke of his "long attenuated fingers." He made money and that was useful to him, for doctors' bills and living had taken up his savings. There was talk of his settling in London, but the climate, not to speak of the unmusical atmosphere, would have been fatal to him. Wagner succumbed to both, sturdy fighter that he was.

Chopin left for Scotland in August and stopped at the house of his pupil, Miss Stirling. Her name is familiar to Chopin students, for the two nocturnes, opus 55, are dedicated to her. He was nearly killed with kindness but continually bemoaned his existence. At the house of Dr. Lyschinski, a Pole, he lodged in Edinburgh and was so weak that he had to be carried up and down stairs. To the doctor's good wife he replied in answer to the question "George Sand is your particular friend?" "Not even George Sand." And is he to be blamed for evading tiresome reminders of the past? He confessed that his excessive thinness had caused Sand to address him as "My Dear Corpse." Charming, is it not? Miss Stirling was doubtless in love with him and Princess Czartoryska followed him to Scotland to see if his health was better. So he was not altogether deserted by the women--indeed he could not live without their little flatteries and agreeable attentions. It is safe to say that a woman was always within call of Chopin.

He played at Manchester on the 28th of August, but his friend Mr. Osborne, who was present, says "his playing was too delicate to create enthusiasm and I felt truly sorry for him." On his return to Scotland he stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Salis Schwabe.

Mr. J. Cuthbert Hadden wrote several years ago in the Glasgow "Herald" of Chopin's visit to Scotland in 1848. The tone-poet was in the poorest health, but with characteristic tenacity played at concerts and paid visits to his admirers. Mr. Hadden found the following notice in the back files of the Glasgow "Courier":

Monsieur Chopin has the honour to announce that his matinee
musicale will take place on Wednesday, the 27th September, in
the Merchant Hall, Glasgow. To commence at half-past two
o'clock. Tickets, limited in number, half-a-guinea each, and
full particulars to be had from Mr. Muir Wood, 42, Buchanan
street.

He continues:

The net profits of this concert are said to have been exactly
L60--a ridiculously low sum when we compare it with the
earnings of later day virtuosi; nay, still more ridiculously
low when we recall the circumstance that for two concerts in
Glasgow sixteen years before this Paganini had L 1,400. Muir
Wood, who has since died, said: "I was then a comparative
stranger in Glasgow, but I was told that so many private
carriages had never been seen at any concert in the town. In
fact, it was the county people who turned out, with a few of
the elite of Glasgow society. Being a morning concert, the
citizens were busy otherwise, and half a guinea was considered
too high a sum for their wives and daughters."

The late Dr. James Hedderwick, of Glasgow, tells in his
reminiscences that on entering the hall he found it about one-third
full. It was obvious that a number of the audience were
personal friends of Chopin. Dr. Hedderwick recognized the
composer at once as "a little, fragile-looking man, in pale
gray suit, including frock coat of identical tint and texture,
moving about among the company, conversing with different
groups, and occasionally consulting his watch," which seemed
to be "no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an
alderman." Whiskerless, beardless, fair of hair, and pale and
thin of face, his appearance was "interesting and
conspicuous," and when, "after a final glance at his miniature
horologe, he ascended the platform and placed himself at the
instrument, he at once commanded attention." Dr. Hedderwick
says it was a drawing-room entertainment, more piano than
forte, though not without occasional episodes of both strength
and grandeur. It was perfectly clear to him that Chopin was
marked for an early grave.

So far as can be ascertained, there are now living only two
members of that Glasgow audience of 1848. One of the two is
Julius Seligmann, the veteran president of the Glasgow Society
of Musicians, who, in response to some inquiries on the
subject, writes as follows:

"Several weeks before the concert Chopin lived with different
friends or pupils on their invitations, in the surrounding
counties. I think his pupil Miss Jane Stirling had something
to do with all the general arrangements. Muir Wood managed the
special arrangements of the concert, and I distinctly remember
him telling me that he never had so much difficulty in
arranging a concert as on this occasion. Chopin constantly
changed his mind. Wood had to visit him several times at the
house of Admiral Napier, at Milliken Park, near Johnstone, but
scarcely had he returned to Glasgow when he was summoned back
to alter something. The concert was given in the Merchant
Hall, Hutcheson street, now the County Buildings. The hall was
about three-quarters filled. Between Chopin's playing Madame
Adelasio de Margueritte, daughter of a well-known London
physician, sang, and Mr. Muir accompanied her. Chopin was
evidently very ill. His touch was very feeble, and while the
finish, grace, elegance and delicacy of his performances were
greatly admired by the audience, the want of power made his
playing somewhat monotonous. I do not remember the whole
programme, but he was encored for his well-known mazurka in B
flat (op. 7, No. 1), which he repeated with quite different
nuances from those of the first time. The audience was very
aristocratic, consisting mostly of ladies, among whom were the
then Duchess of Argyll and her sister, Lady Blantyre."

The other survivor is George Russell Alexander, son of the
proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Dunlop street, who in a
letter to the writer remarks especially upon Chopin's pale,
cadaverous appearance. "My emotion," he says, "was so great
that two or three times I was compelled to retire from the
room to recover myself. I have heard all the best and most
celebrated stars of the musical firmament, but never one has
left such an impress on my mind."

Chopin played October 4 in Edinburgh, and returned to London in November after various visits. We read of a Polish ball and concert at which he played, but the affair was not a success. He left England in January 1849 and heartily glad he was to go. "Do you see the cattle in this meadow?" he asked, en route for Paris: "Ca a plus d'intelligence que des Anglais," which was not nice of him. Perhaps M. Niedzwiecki, to whom he made the remark took as earnest a pure bit of nonsense, and perhaps--! He certainly disliked England and the English.

Now the curtain prepares to fall on the last dreary finale of Chopin's life, a life not for a moment heroic, yet lived according to his lights and free from the sordid and the soil of vulgarity. Jules Janin said: "He lived ten miraculous years with a breath ready to fly away," and we know that his servant Daniel had always to carry him to bed. For ten years he had suffered from so much illness that a relapse was not noticed by the world. His very death was at first received with incredulity, for, as Stephen Heller said, he had been reported dead so often that the real news was doubted. In 1847 his legs began to bother him by swelling, and M. Mathias described him as "a painful spectacle, the picture of exhaustion, the back bent, head bowed--but always amiable and full of distinction." His purse was empty, and his lodgings in the Rue Chaillot were represented to the proud man as being just half their cost,--the balance being paid by the Countess Obreskoff, a Russian lady. Like a romance is the sending, by Miss Stirling, of twenty-five thousand francs, but it is nevertheless true. The noble-hearted Scotchwoman heard of Chopin's needs through Madame Rubio, a pupil, and the money was raised. That packet containing it was mislaid or lost by the portress of Chopin's house, but found after the woman had been taxed with keeping it.

Chopin, his future assured, moved to Place Vendome, No. 12. There he died. His sister Louise was sent for, and came from Poland to Paris. In the early days of October he could no longer sit upright without support. Gutmann and the Countess Delphine Potocka, his sister, and M. Gavard, were constantly with him. It was Turgenev who spoke of the half hundred countesses in Europe who claimed to have held the dying Chopin in their arms. In reality he died in Gutmann's, raising that pupil's hand to his mouth and murmuring "cher ami" as he expired. Solange Sand was there, but not her mother, who called and was not admitted--so they say. Gutmann denies having refused her admittance. On the other hand, if she had called, Chopin's friends would have kept her away from him, from the man who told Franchomme two days before his death, "She said to me that I would die in no arms but hers." Surely--unless she was monstrous in her egotism, and she was not--George Sand did not hear this sad speech without tears and boundless regrets. Alas! all things come too late for those who wait.

Tarnowski relates that Chopin gave his last orders in perfect consciousness. He begged his sister to burn all his inferior compositions. "I owe it to the public," he said, "and to myself to publish only good things. I kept to this resolution all my life; I wish to keep to it now." This wish has not been respected. The posthumous publications are for the most part feeble stuff.

Chopin died, October 17, 1849, between three and four in the morning, after having been shrived by the Abbe Jelowicki. His last word, according to Gavard, was "Plus," on being asked if he suffered. Regarding the touching and slightly melodramatic death bed scene on the day previous, when Delphine Potocka sang Stradella and Mozart--or was it Marcello?--Liszt, Karasowski, and Gutmann disagree.

The following authentic account of the last hours of Chopin appears here for the first time in English, translated by Mr. Hugh Craig. In Liszt's well-known work on Chopin, second edition, 1879, mention is made of a conversation that he had held with the Abbe Jelowicki respecting Chopin's death; and in Niecks' biography of Chopin some sentences from letters by the Abbe are quoted. These letters, written in French, have been translated and published in the "Allgemeine Musik Zeitung," to which they were given by the Princess Marie Hohenlohe, the daughter of Princess Caroline Sayn Wittgenstein, Liszt's universal legatee and executor, who died in 1887.

For many years [so runs the document] the life of Chopin was
but a breath. His frail, weak body was visibly unfitted for
the strength and force of his genius. It was a wonder how in
such a weak state, he could live at all, and occasionally act
with the greatest energy. His body was almost diaphanous; his
eyes were almost shadowed by a cloud from which, from time to
time, the lightnings of his glance flashed. Gentle, kind,
bubbling with humor, and every way charming, he seemed no
longer to belong to earth, while, unfortunately, he had not
yet thought of heaven. He had good friends, but many bad
friends. These bad friends were his flatterers, that is, his
enemies, men and women without principles, or rather with bad
principles. Even his unrivalled success, so much more subtle
and thus so much more stimulating than that of all other
artists, carried the war into his soul and checked the
expression of faith and of prayer. The teachings of the
fondest, most pious mother became to him a recollection of his
childhood's love. In the place of faith, doubt had stepped in,
and only that decency innate in every generous heart hindered
him from indulging in sarcasm and mockery over holy things and
the consolations of religion.

While he was in this spiritual condition he was attacked by
the pulmonary disease that was soon to carry him away from us.
The knowledge of this cruel sickness reached me on my return
from Rome. With beating heart I hurried to him, to see once
more the friend of my youth, whose soul was infinitely dearer
to me than all his talent. I found him, not thinner, for that
was impossible, but weaker. His strength sank, his life faded
visibly. He embraced me with affection and with tears in his
eyes, thinking not of his own pain but of mine; he spoke of my
poor friend Eduard Worte, whom I had just lost, you know how.
(He was shot, a martyr of liberty, at Vienna, November 10,
1848.)

I availed myself of his softened mood to speak to him about
his soul. I recalled his thoughts to the piety of his
childhood and of his beloved mother. "Yes," he said, "in order
not to offend my mother I would not die without the
sacraments, but for my part I do not regard them in the sense
that you desire. I understand the blessing of confession in so
far as it is the unburdening of a heavy heart into a friendly
hand, but not as a sacrament. I am ready to confess to you if
you wish it, because I love you, not because I hold it
necessary." Enough: a crowd of anti-religious speeches filled
me with terror and care for this elect soul, and I feared
nothing more than to be called to be his confessor.

Several months passed with similar conversations, so painful
to me, the priest and the sincere friend. Yet I clung to the
conviction that the grace of God would obtain the victory over
this rebellious soul, even if I knew not how. After all my
exertions, prayer remained my only refuge.

On the evening of October 12 I had with my brethren retired to
pray for a change in Chopin's mind, when I was summoned by
orders of the physician, in fear that he would not live
through the night. I hastened to him. He pressed my hand, but
bade me at once to depart, while he assured me he loved me
much, but did not wish to speak to me.

Imagine, if you can, what a night I passed! Next day was the
13th, the day of St. Edward, the patron of my poor brother. I
said mass for the repose of his soul and prayed for Chopin's
soul. "My God," I cried, "if the soul of my brother Edward is
pleasing to thee, give me, this day, the soul of Frederic."

In double distress I then went to the melancholy abode of our
poor sick man.

I found him at breakfast, which was served as carefully as
ever, and after he had asked me to partake I said: "My friend,
today is the name day of my poor brother." "Oh, do not let us
speak of it!" he cried. "Dearest friend," I continued, "you
must give me something for my brother's name day." "What shall
I give you?" "Your soul." "Ah! I understand. Here it is; take
it!"

At these words unspeakable joy and anguish seized me. What
should I say to him? What should I do to restore his faith,
how not to lose instead of saving this beloved soul? How
should I begin to bring it back to God? I flung myself on my
knees, and after a moment of collecting my thoughts I cried in
the depths of my heart, "Draw it to Thee, Thyself, my God!"

Without saying a word I held out to our dear invalid the
crucifix. Rays of divine light, flames of divine fire,
streamed, I might say, visibly from the figure of the
crucified Saviour, and at once illumined the soul and kindled
the heart of Chopin. Burning tears streamed from his eyes. His
faith was once more revived, and with unspeakable fervor he
made his confession and received the Holy Supper. After the
blessed Viaticum, penetrated by the heavenly consecration
which the sacraments pour forth on pious souls, he asked for
Extreme Unction. He wished to pay lavishly the sacristan who
accompanied me, and when I remarked that the sum presented by
him was twenty times too much he replied, "Oh, no, for what I
have received is beyond price."

From this hour he was a saint. The death struggle began and
lasted four days. Patience, trust in God, even joyful
confidence, never left him, in spite of all his sufferings,
till the last breath. He was really happy, and called himself
happy. In the midst of the sharpest sufferings he expressed
only ecstatic joy, touching love of God, thankfulness that I
had led him back to God, contempt of the world and its good,
and a wish for a speedy death.

He blessed his friends, and when, after an apparently last
crisis, he saw himself surrounded by the crowd that day and
night filled his chamber, he asked me, "Why do they not pray?"
At these words all fell on their knees, and even the
Protestants joined in the litanies and prayers for the dying.

Day and night he held my hand, and would not let me leave him.
"No, you will not leave me at the last moment," he said, and
leaned on my breast as a little child in a moment of danger
hides itself in its mother's breast.

Soon he called upon Jesus and Mary, with a fervor that reached
to heaven; soon he kissed the crucifix in an excess of faith,
hope and love. He made the most touching utterances. "I love
God and man," he said. "I am happy so to die; do not weep, my
sister. My friends, do not weep. I am happy. I feel that I am
dying. Farewell, pray for me!"

Exhausted by deathly convulsions he said to the physicians,
"Let me die. Do not keep me longer in this world of exile. Let
me die; why do you prolong my life when I have renounced all
things and God has enlightened my soul? God calls me; why do
you keep me back?"

Another time he said, "O lovely science, that only lets one
suffer longer! Could it give me back my strength, qualify me
to do any good, to make any sacrifice--but a life of fainting,
of grief, of pain to all who love me, to prolong such a life--
O lovely science!"

Then he said again: "You let me suffer cruelly. Perhaps you
have erred about my sickness. But God errs not. He punishes
me, and I bless him therefor. Oh, how good is God to punish me
here below! Oh, how good God is!"

His usual language was always elegant, with well chosen words,
but at last to express all his thankfulness and, at the same
time, all the misery of those who die unreconciled to God, he
cried, "Without you I should have croaked (krepiren) like a
pig."

While dying he still called on the names of Jesus, Mary,
Joseph, kissed the crucifix and pressed it to his heart with
the cry "Now I am at the source of Blessedness!"

Thus died Chopin, and in truth, his death was the most
beautiful concerto of all his life.

The worthy abbe must have had a phenomenal memory. I hope that it was an exact one. His story is given in its entirety because of its novelty. The only thing that makes me feel in the least sceptical is that La Mara,--the pen name of a writer on musical subjects,--translated these letters into German. But every one agrees that Chopin's end was serene; indeed it is one of the musical death-beds of history, another was Mozart's. His face was beautiful and young in the flower-covered coffin, says Liszt. He was buried from the Madeleine, October 30, with the ceremony befitting a man of genius. The B flat minor Funeral march, orchestrated by Henri Reber, was given, and during the ceremony Lefebure-Wely played on the organ the E and B minor Preludes. The pall-bearers were distinguished men, Meyerbeer, Delacroix, Pleyel and Franchomme--at least Theophile Gautier so reported it for his journal. Even at his grave in Pere la Chaise no two persons could agree about Chopin. This controversy is quite characteristic of Chopin who was always the calm centre of argument.

He was buried in evening clothes, his concert dress, but not at his own request. Kwiatowski the portrait painter told this to Niecks. It is a Polish custom for the dying to select their grave clothes, yet Lombroso writes that Chopin "in his will directed that he should be buried in a white tie, small shoes and short breeches," adducing this as an evidence of his insanity. He further adds "he abandoned the woman whom he tenderly loved because she offered a chair to some one else before giving the same invitation to himself." Here we have a Sand story raised to the dignity of a diagnosed symptom. It is like the other nonsense.

IV. THE ARTIST

Chopin's personality was a pleasant, persuasive one without being so striking or so dramatic as Liszt's. As a youth his nose was too large, his lips thin, the lower one protruding. Later, Moscheles said that he looked like his music. Delicacy and a certain aristrocratic bearing, a harmonious ensemble, produced a most agreeable sensation. "He was of slim frame, middle height; fragile but wonderfully flexible limbs, delicately formed hands, very small feet, an oval, softly outlined head, a pale transparent complexion, long silken hair of a light chestnut color, parted on one side, tender brown eyes, intelligent rather than dreamy, a finely-curved aquiline nose, a sweet subtle smile, graceful and varied gestures." This precise description is by Niecks. Liszt said he had blue eyes, but he has been overruled. Chopin was fond of elegant, costly attire, and was very correct in the matter of studs, walking sticks and cravats. Not the ideal musician we read of, but a gentleman. Berlioz told Legouve to see Chopin, "for he is something which you have never seen--and some one you will never forget." An orchidaceous individuality this.

With such personal refinement he was a man punctual and precise in his habits. Associating constantly with fashionable folk his naturally dignified behavior was increased. He was an aristocrat--there is no other word--and he did not care to be hail-fellow-well-met with the musicians. A certain primness and asperity did not make him popular. While teaching, his manner warmed, the earnest artist came to life, all halting of speech and polite insincerities were abandoned. His pupils adored him. Here at least the sentiment was one of solidarity. De Lenz is his most censorious critic and did not really love Chopin. The dislike was returned, for the Pole suspected that his pupil was sent by Liszt to spy on his methods. This I heard in Paris.

Chopin was a remarkable teacher. He never taught but one genius, little Filtsch, the Hungarian lad of whom Liszt said, "When he starts playing I will shut up shop." The boy died in 1845, aged fifteen; Paul Gunsberg, who died the same year, was also very talented. Once after delivering in a lovely way the master's E minor concerto Filtsch was taken by Chopin to a music store and presented with the score of Beethoven's "Fidelio." He was much affected by the talents of this youthful pupil. Lindsay Sloper and Brinley Richards studied with Chopin. Caroline Hartmann, Gutmann, Lysberg, Georges Mathias, Mlle. O'Meara, many Polish ladies of rank, Delphine Potocka among the rest, Madame Streicher, Carl Mikuli, Madame Rubio, Madame Peruzzi, Thomas Tellefsen, Casimir Wernik, Gustav Schumann, Werner Steinbrecher, and many others became excellent pianists. Was the American pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, ever his pupil? His friends say so, but Niecks does not mention him. Ernst Pauer questions it. We know that Gottschalk studied in Paris with Camille Stamaty, and made his first appearance there in 1847. This was shortly before Chopin's death when his interest in music had abated greatly. No doubt Gottschalk played for Chopin for he was the first to introduce the Pole's music in America.

Chopin was very particular about the formation of the touch, giving Clementi's Preludes at first. "Is that a dog barking?" was his sudden exclamation at a rough attack. He taught the scales staccato and legato beginning with E major. Ductility, ease, gracefulness were his aim; stiffness, harshness annoyed him. He gave Clementi, Moscheles and Bach. Before playing in concert he shut himself up and played, not Chopin but Bach, always Bach. Absolute finger independence and touch discrimination and color are to be gained by playing the preludes and fugues of Bach. Chopin started a method but it was never finished and his sister gave it to the Princess Czartoryska after his death. It is a mere fragment. Janotha has translated it. One point is worth quoting. He wrote: