Wagner did not fail to profit by his marvellously drawn
soul-portraits. Chopin taught his century the pathos of
patriotism, and showed Grieg the value of national ore. He
practically re-created the harmonic charts, he gave voice to the
individual, himself a product of a nation dissolved by
overwrought individualism. As Schumann assures us, his is "the
proudest and most poetic spirit of his time." Chopin, subdued by
his familiar demon, was a true specimen of Nietzsche's
Ubermensch,--which is but Emerson's Oversoul shorn of her wings.
Chopin's transcendental scheme of technics is the image of a
supernormal lift in composition. He sometimes robs music of its
corporeal vesture and his transcendentalism lies not alone in his
striving after strange tonalities and rhythms, but in seeking the
emotionally recondite. Self-tormented, ever "a dweller on the
threshold" he saw visions that outshone the glories of Hasheesh
and his nerve-swept soul ground in its mills exceeding fine
music. His vision is of beauty; he persistently groped at the hem
of her robe, but never sought to transpose or to tone the
commonplace of life.
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