It may
be seen that Chopin was a restless, though not roving nature. In
later years his inability to remain settled in one place bore a
pathological impress,--consumptives are often so.
The Paris of 1831, the Paris of arts and letters, was one of the
most delightful cities in the world for the culture-loving. The
molten tide of passion and decorative extravagance that swept
over intellectual Europe three score years and ten ago, bore on
its foaming crest Victor Hugo, prince of romanticists. Near by
was Henri Heine,--he left Heinrich across the Rhine,--Heine, who
dipped his pen in honey and gall, who sneered and wept in the
same couplet. The star of classicism had seemingly set. In the
rich conflict of genius were Gautier, Schumann, and the rest. All
was romance, fantasy, and passion, and the young men heard the
moon sing silvery--you remember De Musset!--and the leaves rustle
rhythms to the heart-beats of lovers. "Away with the gray-
beards," cried he of the scarlet waistcoat, and all France
applauded "Ernani." Pity it was that the romantic infant had to
die of intellectual anaemia, leaving as a legacy the memories and
work of one of the most marvellous groupings of genius since the
Athens of Pericles.
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