Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Part 6

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 conventionalities, but George Sand's history, for him, proved her to be coa.r.s.e 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 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."

After 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 fifteen, 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 "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 statements, 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.

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, knowing 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 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 dispa.s.sionately drawn his conclusions; and these conclusions are eminently complimentary to all parties concerned.

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.

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 Mediterranean 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 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. Dudevant had accommodatingly 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 cl.u.s.tering grapes, and the green meadows stretching down to the water's edge, where the little river ran its way to the ocean.

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 pa.s.sed. 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 pa.s.sed 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 st.u.r.dily to his music-teaching, with an occasional musicale, yet gave but one public concert in the s.p.a.ce of ten years.

The exquisite quality of Chopin's playing appealed only to the sacred few, but his piano scores were slowly finding sale, through the advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed 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.

There 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.

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 set the songs of Sh.e.l.ley to music. With such names as Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, Poe and Crane must Chopin's name be linked.

In Chopin's music there is much loose texture; there are wide-meshed chords, daring leaps and abrupt arpeggios. These have often been pointed out as faults, but such harmonious discords are now properly valued, and we see that Chopin's lapses all had meaning and purpose, in that they impart a feeling--making their appeal to souls that have suffered--souls that know.

More of Chopin's music is sold in America every year than was sold altogether during the lifetime of the composer. His name and fame grow with each year. Everywhere--wherever a piano is played--on concert platform, in studio or private parlor, there you will find the work of Frederic Chopin. That such a widespread distribution must have a potent and powerful effect upon the race goes without argument, although the furthest limit of that influence no man can mark. It is registered with Infinity alone. And thus does that modest, mild and gentle revolutionist Frederic Chopin live again in minds made better.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCHUMANN]

ROBERT SCHUMANN

Beneath these flowers I dream, a silent chord. I can not wake my own strings to music; but under the hands of those who comprehend me, I become an eloquent friend. Wanderer, ere thou goest, try me!

The more trouble thou takest with me, the more lovely will be the tones with which I shall reward thee.

--_Robert Schumann_

ROBERT SCHUMANN

That any man should ever write his thoughts for other men to read, seems the very height of egoism.

Literature never dies, and so the person who writes const.i.tutes himself a rival of Shakespeare and seeks to lure us from Montaigne, Milton, Emerson and Carlyle. To write nothing better than grammatical English, to punctuate properly, and repeat thoughts in the same sequence that have been repeated a thousand times, is to do something icily regular, splendidly null.

To down the demons of syntax and epithet is not enough. To compose blameless sonatas and produce symphonies in the accepted style, is not adding an iota to the world's worth.

The individual who tries to compose either ideas or harmonious sounds, and hopes for success, must compose because he can not help it. He must place the thing in a way it has never before been placed; on the subject he must throw a new light; he must carry the standard forward, and plant it one degree nearer the uncaptured citadel of the Ideal. And he must remember this: the very prominence of his position will cause him to be the target of contumely, abuse and much stupid misunderstanding. If he complains of these things (as he probably will), he reveals a rift in the lute and proves that he is only a half-G.o.d, after all.

Men of the highest type of culture--those of masterly talent--are not gregarious in their nature. The "jiner" instinct goes with a man who is a little doubtful, and so he attaches himself to this society, club or church.

The very tendency to "jine" is an admission of weakness--it is a getting under cover, a combining against the supposed enemy. The "jiner" is an ameba that clings to flotsam, instead of floating free in the great ocean of life. The lion loves his mate, but prefers to flock by himself.

The pioneer in art, as in any other field, must be willing to face deprivations and loneliness and heart-hunger. He must find companionship with birds and animals, and be brother to the trees and swift-flying clouds. When men meet on the desert or in the forest wilds, how grateful and how gracious is their hand-clasp! When love and understanding come to those who live on the border-land of two worlds, how precious and priceless the boon!

Robert Schumann was the son of a book-publisher of Zwickau. He was a handsome lad with the flash of genius in his luminous eyes, and an independence like that of an Alpine goat. When very young they say he used to have tantrums. If your child has a tantrum, it is bad policy for you to imitate him and have one, too.

A tantrum is only one of the little whirlwinds of G.o.d--it is misdirected energy, power not yet controlled. When Robert had a tantrum, his father would shake him violently to improve his temper, or fall upon him with a strap that hung handy behind the kitchen-door. Then the mother, when the father was out of the way, would take the lad and cry over him, and coddle him, and undo the discipline.