Frederic Chopin as a Man and Musician | Page 5

careless reading. One critic, after
attributing a remark of Chopin's to me, exclaims: "The author is fond of
such violent jumps to conclusions." And an author, most benevolently
inclined towards me, enjoyed the humour of my first "literally ratting"
George Sand, and then saying that I "abstained from pronouncing
judgment because the complete evidence did not warrant my doing so."
The former (in vol. i.) had to do with George Sand's character; the latter
(in vol. ii.) with the moral aspect of her connection with Chopin.
An enumeration of the more notable books dealing with Chopin,
published after the issue of the earlier editions of the present book will
form an appropriate coda to this preface--"Frederic Francois Chopin,"
by Charles Willeby; "Chopin, and Other Musical Essays," by Henry T.
Finck; "Studies in Modern Music" (containing an essay on Chopin), by
W. H. Hadow; "Chopin's Greater Works," by Jean Kleczynski,
translated by Natalie Janotha; and "Chopin: the Man and his Music," by
James Huneker.
Edinburgh, February, 1902.

PROEM.

POLAND AND THE POLES.

THE works of no composer of equal importance bear so striking a
national impress as those of Chopin. It would, however, be an error to
attribute this simply and solely to the superior force of the Polish
musician's patriotism. The same force of patriotism in an Italian,
Frenchman, German, or Englishman would not have produced a similar
result. Characteristics such as distinguish Chopin's music presuppose a
nation as peculiarly endowed, constituted, situated, and conditioned, as
the Polish--a nation with a history as brilliant and dark, as fair and
hideous, as romantic and tragic. The peculiarities of the peoples of
western Europe have been considerably modified, if not entirely
levelled, by centuries of international intercourse; the peoples of the

eastern part of the Continent, on the other hand, have, until recent times,
kept theirs almost intact, foreign influences penetrating to no depth,
affecting indeed no more than the aristocratic few, and them only
superficially. At any rate, the Slavonic races have not been moulded by
the Germanic and Romanic races as these latter have moulded each
other: east and west remain still apart--strangers, if not enemies. Seeing
how deeply rooted Chopin's music is in the national soil, and
considering how little is generally known about Poland and the Poles,
the necessity of paying in this case more attention to the land of the
artist's birth and the people to which he belongs than is usually done in
biographies of artists, will be admitted by all who wish to understand
fully and appreciate rightly the poet- musician and his works. But while
taking note of what is of national origin in Chopin's music, we must be
careful not to ascribe to this origin too much. Indeed, the fact that the
personal individuality of Chopin is as markedly differentiated, as
exclusively self-contained, as the national individuality of Poland, is
oftener overlooked than the master's national descent and its
significance with regard to his artistic production. And now, having
made the reader acquainted with the raison d'etre of this proem, I shall
plunge without further preliminaries in medias res.
The palmy days of Poland came to an end soon after the extinction of
the dynasty of the Jagellons in 1572. So early as 1661 King John
Casimir warned the nobles, whose insubordination and want of solidity,
whose love of outside glitter and tumult, he deplored, that, unless they
remedied the existing evils, reformed their pretended free elections, and
renounced their personal privileges, the noble kingdom would become
the prey of other nations. Nor was this the first warning. The Jesuit
Peter Skarga (1536--1612), an indefatigable denunciator of the vices of
the ruling classes, told them in 1605 that their dissensions would bring
them under the yoke of those who hated them, deprive them of king
and country, drive them into exile, and make them despised by those
who formerly feared and respected them. But these warnings remained
unheeded, and the prophecies were fulfilled to the letter. Elective
kingship, pacta conventa, [Footnote: Terms which a candidate for the
throne had to subscribe on his election. They were of course dictated by
the electors--i.e., by the selfish interest of one class, the szlachta
(nobility), or rather the most powerful of them.] liberum veto,

[Footnote: The right of any member to stop the proceedings of the Diet
by pronouncing the words "Nie pozwalam" (I do not permit), or others
of the same import.] degradation of the burgher class, enslavement of
the peasantry, and other devices of an ever-encroaching nobility,
transformed the once powerful and flourishing commonwealth into one
"lying as if broken-backed on the public highway; a nation anarchic
every fibre of it, and under the feet and hoofs of travelling neighbours."
[Footnote: Thomas Carlyle, Frederick the Great, vol. viii., p. 105.] In
the rottenness